


Break Me Down (I'm Star Dust)

by Hello_Star_Dust



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Badass Mabel Pines, Blood and Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mabel Pines loves flowers, Mabel Pines-centric, Mabel is a literal star, Manipulative Bill Cipher, Medication, Mental Health Issues, The zodiac signs are more than just nicknames, Uncle-Niece Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2019-10-05 09:58:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 47,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17322851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Star_Dust/pseuds/Hello_Star_Dust
Summary: Whether she hated the nickname or not, Mabel Pines was a Shooting Star, and everyone could see her burning. The only problem? The nickname was beginning to become a little too literal for her liking.When the shards of what appears to be a star are found, Dipper and Ford are excited about having found a potential energy source with seemingly no limits. The only problem? Mabel keeps begging them not to use it.





	1. Prologue- A New Summer

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Hey!
> 
> Wow, I finally was convinced to join this site. I love Gravity Falls so much but man, there isn't enough work exploring Mabel, let alone Mabel and Ford's relationship. I genuinely believe Mabel is a super intelligent character-- but she just isn't interested in the fields that Dipper and Ford are.
> 
> And I also want the realisation to set in for Ford just how strong and resilient his Great (and great) Niece is and, if Bill had ever possessed her, he might not have been able to take him down.
> 
> Anyway... strap in and let's go on a wild ride!
> 
>  
> 
> Love,  
> Hello_Star_Dust

If there was something that got Mabel excited without fail, it was the arrival of Summer.

  
While Dipper had also been excited for the annual trip back to Gravity Falls, nothing could come close to the joy that made Mabel want to burst at the seams every summer. After everything the mystery twins had undergone when they were 12 years old, the old town felt more like a home than Piedmont for the two now-15-year old’s.

  
Their Grunkles Stan and Ford had returned from their world-wide sailing expedition in time for their first yearly meet-up and had yet to set off again—instead just enjoying uncovering everything that their town had to offer. Melody and Soos, who were expecting a baby in just a few more weeks, had recently finished building their own home just down the road to the Mystery Shack. Though they had now moved out of the shack, Soos still ran the mystery tours, making sure to hang around just a bit longer during the summer when the twins were visiting.

  
Dipper and Mabel had most of their future already planned out—Dipper would be attending the local University near Gravity Falls while Mabel planned to go to design school on the opposite side of town. As only a couple years were left of high school, the twins had tentatively asked their Grunkles about the possibility of spending time with them while they both studied. Ford had given off an amused smile at the question while Stan had snorted in disbelief, the two older men grinning and embracing their niece and nephew. It was then mentioned that, if the kids didn’t choose to live with the older twins while they studied, they’d break an old man’s heart ( _No, Stanley, that’s not how hearts work—_ )

  
But, with their future plans sorted, the twins were beyond ecstatic to enjoy their fourth summer in the weirdest town on earth. Dipper and Ford had already made plans to explore some of the underground labyrinths that ran beneath the west side of town. Stan had already laid down his conditions for their, no doubt reckless, adventure plans and that was that both men would have boxing and fighting lessons. Ford had complained a lot, ( _Stanley, I survived 30 years of dimension hopping. I know how to fight!_ ) but had eventually conceded that Dipper having some lessons under his belt would make him feel a bit better.

  
Mabel, on the other hand, had mostly left the monster hunting to the two nerds of her family, and had begun to explore the gentler creatures and forestation that surrounded the shack. High school had not been kind to her over the years, and Mabel recognised how strange she was in comparison to the other teens. The boys avoided her on the basis of her being too brash and loud, while the girls would often turn their noses up at her. People could be really cruel sometimes.

  
Mabel knew that only too well.

  
So yeah, she was often more excited to step foot into Gravity Falls than her brother. Crossing the border, feeling the almost imaginary magical barrier surrounding the town pass over her skin, it was like a weight was taken from her shoulders. She could be herself—a strange, glittery child in a town that loved her just the way she was.

  
And, for that, she would always smile to show the town how much she loved them back.


	2. Mabel's Journal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When they turned 15, Ford gifted his Great niece and nephew their own journals,expecting his niece to turn it into a scrapbook the second she got bored with it.
> 
> Imagine his delight when she started her own research.

“Waddles, look at this one!”

Mabel couldn’t help reflecting that Summer really was the best time of the year as she held a flower up to the light. The sun was just beginning to set, dying the sky a warm amber that pooled over her skin like a soothing bath. She’d spent the afternoon exploring the forest around the shack with her dwarf pig, stopping occasionally to take a flower sample to press between the pages of her own journal.

Grunkle Ford had gifted the journal to her for her 15th birthday, her zodiac symbol adorning the pink felt cover with a gold filament 1 to mark the beginning of her own adventure. Dipper had received one as well—his first official journal, their Grunkle had explained—and he was already set to have filled out a third of it within their first week back in Gravity Falls. Mabel knew that, though her Grunkle had more than enough praise for her, he had expected her to turn it into a scrapbook as soon as she got bored with it.

It had been just as surprising to her when, with journal in hand, she had come out of the forest one day with four pressed flowers stuck between the pages and spent the afternoon sketching them up in the attic. Worried by the fact that their niece hadn’t made a peep in hours, Stan and Ford had crept up the stairs and found her comparing the petals she had pressed to ones on the internet.

Ford had been beyond ecstatic at his niece’s interest in botany—his own knowledge of the subject was limited to just the weird specimens he had found over the years. Later that day, he’d fashioned a locket with a built-in compass, SOS signal and cell phone to gift her with, and she’d immediately fitted it onto one of her favourite chains so she could wear it at all times. Mabel then decided then and there that she was going to make the most beautiful encyclopedia of the plants around the shack—and that, when it was done, she was going to show her Grunkle that she could be nerdy in her own weird way too.

“It’s so beautiful,” Mabel breathed, pulling her journal from the folds of her sweater. She placed the flower on the last page of her journal to dry as it was pressed and then began sketching the garden bed.

The stem was the palest green she had ever seen on a plant and shone dully under the dissipating light. The petals faded from navy at the tip to a baby blue where it met the stem. After a quick check of her compass, Mabel was able to jot down the coordinates of the flower patch and made sure to include how it smelt too, in case the info would help identify it later.

Waddles snuffled at the ground beside her, content to wait until his owner was finished with her glittery book. An hour later, she’d filled out two pages of observations with a spot ready for the pressed flower once it had dried enough. She hoped it was at least close to her Grunkle’s standards, not that he held her to any level of expectation, after all he loved her for her, but she still wanted to impress him.

Like how Dipper impressed him every day.

With a sigh, the young girl clambered to her feet and started in surprise, noticing that the sun had set quite a while ago. With a quick glance at her pendant to check for any missed calls, she packed up her pencils, called Waddles back over and then started back for the shack. Though her Grunkles had yet to call her, she knew staying out too late was a recipe for being interrogated and inspected for injury as soon as she walked in the door.

It was another ten minutes before she made it back through the tree line and sprinted for the back door of the shack, racing and easily beating her pet pig. The kitchen light was on so she immediately ducked into the room, journal clasped in her hands in preparation for stealing Grunkle Ford for a few minutes to show him the flower.

The room was empty, however, and she stopped short, eyes locking onto the cursive of her Grunkle’s note on the table. A quick glance through the other doorways showed the rest of the house devoid of all light, causing a slither of worry to curl in the lower part of her tummy.

“ _Mabel_ ,” she read aloud, tracing the edges of the note with her fingers. “ _Stan is in town with some old friends. He’ll be drinking and you know how he is with his phone._ ” Mabel stifled a laugh, holding the note a little bit tighter as she remembered her Grunkle complaining about small screens and big fingers. “ _I expect to find him on the couch sometime in the early morning. Dipper and I are out hunting ghouls and don’t know when we will be back. Can you call us once you’ve read this so we know you got home safe? If we don’t answer, don’t panic, we might just need to be very quiet. Love, Stanford + Dipper._ ”

With a wide grin at Dipper’s attempt to recreate their Grunkle’s elegant scrawl, she clicked open her locket and dialled Ford’s number, holding the device up while a projection screen filled the space above the device. It rang for a few moments and, to her delight, Ford and Dipper’s faces filled the screen.

“There you are, sweetheart!” Ford laughed, grinning widely as he and Dipper settled into a sitting position. “I was just getting ready to call! It’s awfully late, did you only just get home?”

“Yeah, sorry,” she giggled, not really all that sorry as she began to make herself a cup of hot cocoa. “I found a flower I’d never seen before! I can’t wait to show you the sample when you get home!”

“I look forward to it,” Ford chuckled back, eyes shining with an affection that Mabel was still getting used to.

It was a look he had only rarely directed at her, most of his praise going to her twin brother. Mabel wasn’t bitter about it at all, she even understood it—her Grunkle had gone his whole life having never found someone like himself until he had met Dipper. And how could she begrudge her brother when it made him so happy? So no, she wasn’t bitter about it, but gosh she loved having that approving look of affection directed at her now too.

“You made sure to be careful, right, Mabel?” Dipper quickly piped up, his grime-streaked face making his worried eyes look so much larger. “You can never be too sure about samples. Plants can be poisonous or contain toxins so you have to handle any samples you take with the greatest care.”

Mabel snorted at his comment and grinned, rolling her eyes affectionately at her brother. She knew for a fact that, though the two men took care when gathering samples, they were not the best advocates for ‘taking care’ of themselves whilst on an adventure.

“So how’s the ghoul hunting going?” she asked, pouring a generous helping of whipped cream into her mug. Dipper looked like he was about to tell her to take it easy on the sugar but Ford was in science mode, easily ignoring Mabel’s impending sugar rush.

“We seem to be on a decent trail!” he gushed, smiling proudly down at Dipper before returning his attention to Mabel. “There’s definitely been ghouls travelling through this area so I believe they might be trying to head to the graveyards in the next town over.”

“Will you stay on the trail? It’s getting awfully late.”

“We packed our camping gear just in case,” Dipper piped up, grinning from ear to ear. He looked excited by the prospect of spending the night in the wilderness.  
  
“When was the last time you showered?” Mabel asked pointedly, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

“Sometime this week,” he dismissed quickly, the two men snickering quietly about being stuck in a science bender.

“Well… stay safe at least,” Mabel commented, already wondering how she would fall asleep without her brother’s quiet snores filling her ears. “Come home as soon as you can, okay?”

“We promise,” Dipper answered immediately, his eyes softening at the worry in her tone.

“Now, best to head to bed soon, sweetheart,” Ford suggested, giving her a meaningful look as she sculled the last of her hot cocoa. “And don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

“Nag, nag, nag!” she giggled, rinsing out her cup before making her way up the stairs. “Alright, I love you both. Goodnight.”

“Sweet dreams, sweetheart.”

“Love you too, sis!”

Ending the call, Mabel did as she was told, brushing her teeth and tying her hair into a low braid. She turned off all of the lights except for her bedside lamp, bringing the journal as she clambered into bed and under the sheets. Her container of meds rattled in her palm as she pulled out a single white pill, throwing it into her mouth with a swig of water. With her mind at ease, she spent the next few hours attempting to identify the specimens she had collected. She’d found all of them eventually apart from one—the flower with the fading blue petals.

After searching through as many botany websites as she could, Mabel began to entertain the idea that, perhaps, she had discovered a new variety of flower. She knew it wasn’t likely, but the idea was fun enough to keep her entertained until, eventually, her eyes had grown too heavy for the light of her laptop. Just short of her head hitting the hard-plastic shell of the computer, she fell asleep, the blue flower pressed between her cheek and the keypad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is gonna be intense!  
> It's already written up, just need to edit it and then upload. 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you have any feedback! The next chapter will feature Mabel's first signs of being her Shooting Star self, some blood and the death of a anomalous creature.


	3. Radio Silence (S.O.S. please)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Communication is key-- until all you get is radio silence. 
> 
> Mabel goes out looking for her family and gets ambushed by a supernatural creature.

**Mabel P.O.V**

By the time dawn broke, I was up and ready to go, my journal clutched in my hands as I went downstairs in search of Grunkle Stan. Dipper wasn’t in his bed so I had assumed that both he and Ford were still running around in the forest somewhere, likely having not slept at all and in serious need of a shower.

But, to my surprise when I got downstairs, there was no hungover Stan precariously tossed over the couch. A quick inspection of his room revealed that not only was he not there, he hadn’t come home at all the previous night. With a frown, I hurried over to the front patio to see if there were any cars out the front of the house, dialling Stan’s number as I went. As expected, it was still way too early for Soos to come give his tours so his car wasn’t there, but neither was the Stanley mobile. My locket buzzed sadly around my neck, almost as if it knew it was delivering bad news as it reported that no one had picked up.

Ignoring the sinking feeling in my chest, I tried Stan’s number at least three more times, quietly getting more and more upset. I tried to reassure myself that my Grunkle had been out drinking—he had probably done the right thing and slept at a friend’s house instead of driving home ( _since when does Stan do the legal thing, though—_ ). Unable to banish the unwanted thoughts from my head, I typed in Ford’s number, listening nervously to the dial tone until it too reported that there was no answer.

“Okay,” I breathed, sucking in a long breath to try and dismiss the panic that was threatening to collapse my lungs. “They do this a lot. Grunkle Ford and Dipper have either just worked themselves into a coma or they just have to be super quiet at the moment. No big deal.”

But, despite trying to distract myself, the dread that filled me continued to grow. By the time Soos was meant to turn up for the first tour, the parking lot was completely empty—and neither the ex-handyman nor Wendy had shown up. In between trying to call either of my Grunkles, I debated hitting the SOS button on my locket, berating myself afterwards that my paranoia was not a justified reason for potentially ruining my brother’s ghoul-hunting trip. I could just imagine the disappointment on Ford’s face if he were to come home early, only to find out there was no real danger.

I knew I couldn’t handle that.

By late evening, I was ready to pull my hair out. I knew it was getting close to the time when I was meant to take my next dose of meds—Dipper had made me promise to stick to the strict regime, even if he wasn’t around to monitor me—but they were the last thing on my mind. With one last ignored phone call, I slipped my shoes on, grabbed my journal and headed down the dirt road towards town.

The idea was that if Stan was on his way home, I’d pass his car on the way into town. If he didn’t, I would check in with some of the towns folk to track him down—Grunkle Stan was not a subtle drinker and, on this rare occasion, everyone knowing where he had gone to party would be beneficial. The only problem was that the town was at least a 20-minute walk from the shack and the night air was already becoming chilled, forcing me to tug on the edges of my sweater for warmth.

A rumble in the distance made me pause in my trek, turning my face towards the distant sky. Without the sun’s light, the dark clouds had quickly devoured the sky without my notice and looked like they were getting ready to douse the parched earth at any second. Strangling down a curse—Stan didn’t need to know that I had a potty mouth—I ducked into the tree line just in time for the heavens to open up.

“Perfect,” I grumbled, feeling water soak into my sweater despite the mediocre cover of the pine trees. I tossed a half-hearted glare up at the sky but gave up when a combination of the cold soaking into my bones and spending the whole day panicking began to make me realise just how weary I was. “Oh, where is everyone…?”

_…Child…_

I wanted so badly to sleep then and there, regardless of the water pooling in my boots or the weight of the sodden yarn pulling my shoulders down. My eyes felt so very heavy, the pattering of the rain forming the most soothing lullaby I had ever heard. I briefly wondered if I was going into hypothermic shock but the chill against my skin was so calming… like a gentle caress…

_…Child, it’s not… safe…!_

Despite the alarm that tried to gnaw at the back of my head, the soothing lull of the rain made the approaching footfalls seem so very normal. I knew the crunching of the dead leaves and fallen twigs wasn’t a good sign—there were any number of creatures, mythical or natural, that wanted to devour me—and yet, I felt far too safe.

_…Star… Child…!_

When cold fingers gripped my shoulder, nails digging into my flesh, my body jolted in shock and the warnings in my mind reached a screaming cacophony. I threw myself forward, rolling in the wet gravel in my desperation to escape whatever had tried to lull me into a false sense of security. A pale woman stood beneath the pine trees, garbed in nothing more than a skirt of tattered seaweed. Her matted, black hair covered her breasts and her face was like painted porcelain in its delicacy.

_…Siren… Siren… Siren…_

The voice in the back of my head began to chant the creature’s name like a mantra, fear thrumming in my veins like an old friend. The siren’s lips curled into a tiny smile, kind eyes staring down at me for just a second longer.

Until she lunged.

_RUN!_

Unaware of how much skin I tore in my desperation to get to my feet, I bolted with the very real possibility that my life depended on it. My pendent smacked against my chest with every harried step and I quickly dug my thumb into the SOS button, praying to anyone who could hear me that this would not be my end. Dipper and I had so many plans for the future—lives that I wanted to see play out before dying in the most glittery way possible. I could hear the Siren getting closer to me, her harsh, gurgled breaths making me feel like my own lungs weren’t working.

But, with the ground as slick as it was with the falling rain, it was only so long before I lost my footing and immediately slammed back into the hard ground. My pendent, caught between my collarbone and the ground, gave an awful shattering sound and I felt my chest constrict, grief-stricken at losing my prized possession.

Grunkle Ford’s gift to me.

The feeling didn’t last long as the Siren came to stand before me, smiling down at me with that horrifying porcelain smile. I sat there frozen, my body refusing to move as the creature bent over my body and laid her cold hand against my cheek, her startling blue eyes making me feel like I was falling into her very being.

“ _Star child_ ,” she murmured, her voice a quiet orchestra of hundreds of voices—both young and old, male and female. Her other hand wandered, dipping into both shallow and deep cuts that littered my legs from the chase. “ _You smell so sweet… So bright, so shiny… If I consume you, surely I will live forever? Bill Cipher’s Shooting Star…_ ”

With just those words, white hot fury poured through my veins and I felt my whole body seize in rage. This creature, this stupid _Siren,_ wanted nothing more than immortality and dared to mention _that name._ If I knew anything at this point in my life, it was that everyone always wanted something from me—favours, money, sweaters, designs, even my misery—and I was so _sick_ of being hounded down.

Heat pooled in my body and I was so focused on how much I hated this Siren for how she made me feel that I didn’t immediately notice the frightened look on her face. I didn’t notice the steam that poured like rivulets from my body as the rain continued to fall against my skin, nor the way the Siren hissed in pain as the heat of my skin burnt at her too. I noticed none of it, instead focusing purely on my hatred of the creature and the soft humming in my head that belonged to neither the Siren nor I.

“Don’t you _ever touch me again!_ ” I spat, barring my teeth at the Siren who began to wail in pain. It was only then that I began to notice the terrifying glow emanating from beneath my skin, how my body seemed to shine so bright that even I couldn’t seem to focus on myself anymore. The light continued to increase until I shut my eyes to give myself some relief, a deafening scream of anguish rising over the forest for two terrifying seconds before there was silence.

Darkness blanketed the forest once more, not a single sign that my body had become an inferno remaining once I cautiously opened my eyes. The only indication that anything had happened at all was the black ash that covered the ground where the Siren had stood not even a few seconds before.

The silence was deafening—not even the crickets were chirping. There was a prevalent tremor in my shoulders and, for some reason, my tongue felt so very thick in my mouth that words couldn’t form. A low, keening sounds was coming from my throat with every harried exhale and my eyes blurred, hot tears cascading down my cheeks in unforgiving waves.

_I killed her…_

She was going to kill me.

It didn’t matter, in that moment, that the light that had emanated from my skin didn’t make sense. All I could focus on was that terror, deep in my chest, as I looked at the charred shadow of the Siren scoured into the forest floor. She’d been twisted in agony, consumed by a heat that could rival a…

A star.

_…Shooting Star…!_

With an unholy wail, I clambered to my bleeding legs and stumbled further into the woods, unsure of which way was which. I couldn’t even see properly, the blur of my tears turning everything into a collage of dark browns and greens. The remains of my locket dangled from my neck, half of the circuitry missing and irreparable damage done to its casing. It almost resembled my legs in a way—battered with crimson leaking freely from the slits in my skin.

It could have been hours that I had walked, stumbling through the flocks of pine trees. The moon rose higher and higher into the inky blackness that was the sky. My vision never seemed to improve, it might even have gotten worse from the blood loss—which really, my socks were soaked and things were beginning to become slippery.

Eventually, I could make out the sound of shouting—a constant repetition of something that sounded vaguely like my name. Lights began to break through the gaps in the trees and I stumbled forward, falling to my knees in the soft grass before the mystery shack. The house was awash with lights, burning my eyes as I dragged myself forward, knowing that I needed to get back to the patio _now._

“Mabel?!” the distant yells came, torch lights flashing from different parts of the woods.

Swallowing as hard as I could, I let my mouth fall open and wailed as loud as I could with my sore throat. The tears came back then, at full force, as I lay just on the steps of the shack, in too much pain to try and pull myself up further. The answering yells came from the woods and I felt my body slump, praying that soon I would be in a warm bed where no one could hurt me.

The first one to break the tree line was Ford, looking like a man running for his life. There was only a single falter in his gait, the moment where his eyes took in all of the blood, and then he was bolting to my side.

“Mabel!” he yelled, voice cracking in its desperation as he forced himself not to touch me. His six-fingered hands hovered nervously in the air, all of the calm facade that my Grunkle was known for having seemingly disappeared. “Mabel, what _happened?!_ Where are you hurt?!”

“Mabel!”

Dipper was the next to duck out of the trees, stumbling over his own legs as he ran. Grunkle Stan was not far behind, overtaking him in seconds to fall to my other side.

“Mabel, pumpkin, you’re covered in blood!” Stan moaned, sounding like a dying animal as he gently helped me to sit up. Grunkle Ford tried to stop him, spouting something about potential spinal injuries, but a sharp look from Stan was enough to make him stop. “What happened? Where have you been?”

“You guys—” I began to say until I choked, my throat twinging in protest after everything that had happened with the Siren. A flask was shoved against my mouth, Dipper’s terrified eyes staring at me over it as his hands shook the canister.

“Slowly, slowly, sweetheart,” Ford murmured, visibly beginning to calm down as I drank heavily. After a while, he held a hand up and Dipper took it away, the older man asking my brother to fetch a first aid kit. “Now, what happened? Why weren’t you at the house?”

“No-one came home!” I snapped, the uncharacteristic outburst surprising both of my Grunkles. “No-one was answering their phones and… and… Soos and Wendy didn’t show up and I just thought…” I trailed off, beginning to feel the burn of tears again before wiping them away. I sucked in a long breath, trying to force the hysteria down that was trying to resurface. “I thought something had happened,” I whispered, curling my arms around myself.

Dipper re-emerged with the first aid kit, still visibly dishevelled but looking somewhat calmer. He had no doubt been listening from inside. “So… you went out to look for us?” he asked quietly, setting the box down beside Ford.

“I headed into to town to see if I could find Grunkle Stan,” I admitted, trying to ignore the noticeable flinch that he gave at the sound of his name. “But then it started raining and—”

“It hasn’t rained today, Mabel,” Grunkle Stan piped up, frowning down at my sodden hair and clothes. He glanced at Ford, the two already concluding that it was some kind of anomaly.

“What happened next, sweetheart?” Ford asked, digging through the box for some rubbing alcohol and gauze. “And deep breaths, this might sting a little.”

When the alcohol came into contact with my skin, the sting I had been warned about didn’t come. At Ford’s dumbfounded look, I merely shrugged. “High pain tolerance,” I explained, averting my eyes from his frown of confusion as he went back to work. “Well, it started raining where I was and… it was so calming, you know? But it was a trick because there was a Siren in the woods—”

At the name of the creature, Dipper and Ford’s reactions were almost simultaneous. There were shouts of worry and threats to kill the creature until Stan smacked his twin’s arm, glaring pointedly so that I could finish the story.

“And she, the _Siren_ , had been trying to make me go to sleep,” I continued, offering Stan a grateful smile. “But it didn’t work and I ran and… she chased me. But I tripped and she was on me and—” I cut off before I could finish the sentence, remembering the twisted shadow burnt into the forest floor. Suddenly, another thought hit me and I scrambled for the pendant around my neck, startling both of my Grunkles who backed off immediately. “I fell!” I shouted, fingers shaking as I held up the remains of my precious pendant. “I fell and… and… and it broke!”

“I can make you a new one, dear, I promise,” Grunkle Ford whispered, wrapping his arms around me and holding tight. I gripped him back just as tightly, worried about breaking to pieces like my pendant if I let go. “You’re safe now. But… how did you escape the Siren’s spell? Once you’re caught, you can’t escape on your own.”

“I…” I began, swallowing heavily as I remembered the creature huddled over me, ice cold finger tips tracing the edges of my face. “I don’t know but… she called me ‘Star Child’ and… I thought I heard another voice telling me to run.”

Ford and Dipper exchanged a look, equal parts concern and worry before turning back to me. “And is the Siren still out there?” Dipper asked, looking over his shoulder towards the woods. “How far did it follow you?”

“It…”

Now, I couldn’t explain the hesitance that caught me in that moment. I’d wanted to tell my Grunkles and brother what had happened—I really had—but something weighed down my chest at the idea of any of them looking at me with the fear that the Siren did. The glow from beneath my skin, the burnt shadow in the ground, the blood on my hands—I didn’t want my family to see the side of me that the creature had, in her final moments. So, I did the only logical thing.

I lied.

“She… chased me for a long time but… I lost her,” I whispered, feeling the shame of my actions coursing through my veins. My eyes burnt and I covered my face with my hands, hating the words that were pouring from my lips but unable to stop them. “And I hid for a long time until I was sure she was gone and just… tried to find the shack.”

“It’s okay,” Ford said, smiling softly down at me as he began wrapping my legs up. “I’m so proud of you.” I smiled wobbly back at him, feeling tears dribble down my cheeks. He smiled back, placing a hand on my cheek and Stan ran his hand through my hair. Dipper reached out a hand, taking my own identical palm into his own and squeezing tight to try and reassure me. They were showing that they loved me and all I could think was that I had just lied to them.

I’d never felt so disgusting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm weak for loving pet names from the Grunks.  
> First showing of Star!Mabel and I'm so excited to see where this goes.
> 
> Things to look out for in the coming chapters:  
> Why was no one reachable via the phone?  
> What was the star-like glow coming from Mabel when she got angry?  
> And whose voice did she hear warning her about the Siren?


	4. Star Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **TW for a panic attack**
> 
> Mabel finally asks about the radio silence from the day before and shows her Grunkle Ford the beautiful flower she had been studying.
> 
> It doesn't end the way she wanted it to.

“Why didn’t you answer your phones?”

I’d posed the question in the middle of breakfast, the stan cakes sitting like solid lead in my stomach as I met Ford’s eyes across the table. Stan and Dipper sat on either side of us, their eyes raising from their own plates in confusion at the sudden change in conversation.

“Pardon?” Ford asked, looking genuinely taken aback by the question. Then again, he always looked like a startled owl in the morning until at least his third cup of coffee.

“Yesterday,” I mumbled, suddenly feeling dumb about having been so hung up on their radio silence the day before. “I called you guys a lot but… no-one picked up. I thought you guys were hurt. And… And Soos and Wendy didn’t come in for work…”

“Your Grunkle Stan hit the grog a bit too hard,” Stan admitted gruffly, scratching at the stubble on his chin as he at least tried to look bashful. “Spent the day conked out on a friend’s couch. My phone was dead by the time I woke up, sorry, pumpkin. Told Soos and Wendy to take this upcoming week off too.”

“Oh…” I breathed, my chest tightening as I remembered that surge of panic seizing my whole frame. Nothing had seemed fully coherent after that and, stupidly, I had gone in search of him on the off-chance he was hurt somewhere.

“We slept till late in the morning and then had to shut down all communication,” Dipper explained, grimacing as he pushed the last of his stan cakes around his plate. “The frequency of our phones kept giving away our position.”

“I…” I blinked, feeling my throat compressing as I realised it all really had been in my head. The paranoia, the fear, the idea of blood coating everything—

I realised with a start that I hadn’t taken my meds the day before nor my morning ones yet. I gave a shaky laugh, trying to offer the rest of my family a reassuring smile as I shoved the last piece into my mouth.

“Sorry, guess I was a bit tense yesterday,” I sheepishly stated, taking the empty dishes to the sink and loading them into the dish washer. “But I feel better now that you guys are home. What’s the go for today?”

“Well, this old Grunk is going to start building some new attractions for those walking wallets,” Stan snickered. Ford let out a tired sigh, mumbling his normal argument about his house being turned into a mockery but with no real heat to it. “Sixer, I ain’t telling you again—the shack is what pays the bills for us! It’s gold!”

“Yes, Stan, sure, Stan,” Ford grumbled, smiling despite his grouchy tone as he downed the last of his coffee. A fourth cup was poured by Dipper and then the two got to their feet, obviously about to head down to the lab.

“Wait!” I called as I ducked past my Grunkle and Brother, running out of the room. With a speed belonging only to someone who regularly drank Mabel Juice, I was back in mere seconds, my journal clasped in my arms. “I wanted to show you this flower I found!” I shouted excitedly, sitting back at the table and laying my book out.

Ford smiled at my enthusiasm and re-took his seat at the table, Dipper following suit a few moments after. “Alright, sweetheart,” Ford chuckled, patting his leg so I could perch on his knee. It was all a part of the experience and I quickly leapt onto his lap, grinning at the audible exhale my Grunkle released at being knocked so harshly. “You’re starting to get too big for this.”

“Never!” I quipped, dropping my journal onto the table with a heavy thud. With renewed excitement, I flipped to my most recent entry and pointed at the charcoal sketch. “So, I couldn’t find any leads in any of my books or on the internet,” I explained, pulling the sample from the last page and holding it up to the light. Ford had lost the playful grin and was now staring at the flower in genuine interest, a soft crease folding his brow. “And it’s beyond stunning. It has only the slightest scent to it, nothing I have ever encountered before!” I turned the flower on its side, squeezing the stem until a sluggish, glittery goo emerged from the cut-off point. “And look! There’s _glitter_ in the chlorophyll!”

“That’s… wow…” Ford muttered, eyes going wide in genuine awe. He very gently took the sample from my hands, gently prodding the petals apart to look at the pollen inside of the bud. “The pistil… looks like it’s some kind of bright stone…”

Ford quickly handed the sample back to me and stood up, muttering out a quick word as he placed me back onto the ground and bolted down to his lab. Dipper glanced between me, the flower and the elevator in complete confusion, almost as if he were trying to figure out if he had been supposed to follow our Grunkle. By the time he made up his mind and went to get to his feet, the elevator dinged again and Ford came rushing back into the kitchen, satchel tucked under his arm.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, Mabel, my dear!” he gushed, his eyes practically glowing with excitement as he began pulling tools out of his bag.

“Poindexter, you know how I feel about you doing science in the kitchen,” Stan grumbled, picking up the newspaper to give himself something to do. In all fairness, he didn’t particular like any science done _anywhere_ he could see it.

Or hear it.

Or, on the off-chance it was an explosion, _feel_ it.

Really, at this point, I was sure Grunkle Stan just hated science.

“Nonsense, Lee!” Ford gushed, ignoring the sarcastic intonation in his twin’s voice. “I genuinely believe our great niece has found an anomaly with her passion for plants!”

“Really?” I asked, peering over at my Grunkle as he pulled out a pair of pincers.

“Indeed, sweetheart,” he hummed, grinning proudly me in that way that just made warmth fill my chest. I couldn’t help but grin back, already planning on returning to the flower patch to collect some more of the sample for Ford. “Look at this beauty,” he continued, gently pulling at the pistil of the flower with his tools. After a few moments, the pincers were pulled free of the bud and, clenched between the metal, was what looked like a—

“Is that a _diamond?!_ ” Stan choked, nearly crushing his paper as he jumped in shock. His eyes had gone huge and I knew we now had his full attention.

“Not quite,” Ford answered, visibly getting more and more worked up as he continued to turn the piece this way and that. “But, it’s even _more_ valuable than a diamond if this is what I think it is.”

“Which would be…?”

“I think…” he began, face clearing. Whatever he had seen in that moment must have confirmed his suspicions because, when he continued, it was with a look of total awe. “…This is a star fragment…!”

A bolt of electricity seemed to shoot down my spine at the mention of what the fragment was. My skin crawled, images of a twisted shadow burnt into the grass replaying like a horrific fault on a record.

“How… how can that be possible, Grunkle Ford?” Dipper piped up in wonder. The rest of my family was so focused on the fragment in my Grunkles hand, they didn’t seem to notice, or at least register, the blood draining from my face as I shook. “Stars are just combusting gas and… and…”

“What the current scientific community believe stars are, yes,” our Grunkle continued, his eyes never once leaving the piece. “But, when travelling through Dimension E493, I learnt that those explosive reactions that give off light and heat are mere by-products of _these!_ Dipper, this is a _real_ star piece!” He turned to look at my brother, face so open and earnest that he looked almost ten years younger. “There’s so much to do! We have to map the stars and see if we can spot what is missing from the sky— _Oh!_ And we need to go find that flower patch of yours, Mabel! See if we can’t find the rest of the star!”

“The… my flower bed?” I asked, suddenly feeling my stomach sinking in dread. “Why… What are you going to do to the flowers?”

“If they’re what I think they are—” he exclaimed, already re-packing his equipment into his satchel as he urged Dipper to get ready. “Then each one of those flowers will have grown around a shard!”

“Grunkle Ford, you can’t destroy—”

“With so many pieces, we could be close to rebuilding an entire star!” Ford continued, so thoroughly enthused with the prospect of examining a star that he didn’t even hear my quiet protests.

“Grunkle Ford—”

“Dipper, we need to move!” Ford exclaimed, scooping up my journal from where it had laid abandoned on the table. “Before anything happens to those pieces! Imagine what we could discover by studying them!”

And, without so much as a backwards glance, Dipper and Ford rushed out the door.

Grunkle Stan and I remained staring at the door for several silent seconds, the only sound heard being the jagged ticking of the kitchen’s clock. I could feel Stan’s gaze on the back of my head, could practically sense the weight of his worry at how still I had gone after being accidentally ignored by the two other men in our family.

“…Pumpkin?” Stan asked quietly, clearing his throat to try and break the silence. “You okay, sweetie?”

“I know they didn’t mean it,” I whispered, feeling my throat start to tighten as the beginning of tears formed in my eyes. “I know they didn’t.” Once more, the reminder that I had not had my meds the night before nor this morning flickered through my head but didn’t stick around for too long, the ugly emotions bubbling up from my chest covering everything in a hazy, thick goo.

“Pumpkin—”

“They didn’t mean it,” I repeated, noticing with muted panic that my voice came out stilted and choked. I tried to touch my throat, see what was wrong with it that was seemingly making it so hard to breathe, but my numbing fingers merely scrabbled at the skin clumsily. “Don’t…” I tried to gasp, turning blurry eyes to Stan’s quickly paling face. “—Feel so good… Grunkle… Stan—”

Stan was out of his chair in a heartbeat, his arms quickly pulling my back ( _when had I started to shake?_ ) to press against his chest. There was a ringing in my ears, white noise clouding Stan’s worried instructions to copy his breathing ( _Kid, you gotta keep breathing—!_ ). Water flooded down my face, my eyes nothing more than broken dams spilling their guts for the world to see. I felt like I was dying in that moment—like the world was finally cruel enough to take the last breath from my lungs and withhold it. Fear thrummed like pure adrenaline against the walls of my veins, my whole body a war-torn world trying to tear itself apart at the seams.

_Breathe!_

Unbidden, the voice at the back of my head began to hum, a soothing melody calming the frantic back and forth of my thoughts. It was becoming easier to breathe, the cool air rushing down my throat so quickly I choked and had to be further soothed by my Grunkle.

After what felt like hours, I began to feel my fingers and toes again, the sharp tingling in them jolting me further back into reality. My face was soaked with tears and spit and I flinched, knowing that I probably looked beyond disgusting.

“Back with me, Pumpkin?” Grunkle Stan murmured, his gravelly voice causing his chest to rumble soothingly.

“…Yeah,” I whispered, resting my head against his shoulder. “I’m so—”

“If that’s an apology, don’t even think about it,” Stan grumbled. I could feel the concern etched into every joint in his body and it made my stomach hurt, knowing I put it there. Eventually, with a groan, Stan got to his feet, keeping me tucked firmly in his arms until he could deposit me on the counter. “Now,” he said, raising a brow as he tossed me a serious look. “Hot chocolate with or without sprinkles?”

And, really, I doubted I could possibly love my Grunkle more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a couple people have asked about what mental illness Mabel has and, to be honest, I'm probably not going to link any particular illness to her. I have a couple reasons for this:
> 
> 1) As she's underage, psychiatrists and doctors would be hesitant to place a diagnosis on any particular mood disorders and whatnot until she is at least 16 or 18, depending on where you live.  
> 2) Mental illnesses are never that cut and dry-- often, there will be prominent symptoms that don't fit into any category and won't make sense (when does it ever?)  
> 3) I know all of this from personal experience  
> 4) Medications can still be administered to try and curb symptoms  
> 5) I don't want anyone who reads this to try and self-diagnose themselves based on moods or actions exhibited by Mabel. I think it's very important to seek professional help if you think anything is wrong and to seek help.


	5. Patience and Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grunkle Stan is a thief and conman.  
> Mabel is all shooting stars and rainbows.  
> Stan would do anything to make his great (and Great) niece smile.

By the time Dipper and Ford came home, it was past midnight.

Stan had managed to calm me down in a way that only he could achieve and, though I still felt panic prickling beneath my skin like a cancer, my hands no longer shook excessively. With a warm cup of cocoa flooded with cream and chocolate chips, Stan had sent me to the attic to go and knit—something that never failed to soothe my raised hackles.

My Grunkle would come to duck his head in every 15 minutes on the dot, trying his best to give me the space I needed whilst also needing me to know that he cared. On one of his last trips up the stairs before he went to start watching old re-runs of Ducktective, the flower that had been discarded during the chaos of the morning was held gently between his calloused fingers.

“I have no doubt those two will have ruined your flowers, pumpkin,” he had muttered, trying to keep a lid on the obvious frustration he was feeling towards his brother and nephew. “But this is yours and I want you to hold onto it. They don’t get their grubby hands on it, alright?”

“Thanks, Grunkle Stan,” I’d hummed back, feeling my chest swell with love for the old man. Then, I noticed his shifty gaze and felt my brows raising, knowing full well that nothing good ever came out of Stan’s conman look. “What did you do?”

“Now don’t you be going all high and mighty on me,” he snorted back, placing the small, crumpled flower into my waiting hands. The petals were cool to the touch—long since dead and yet looking as if it had been picked not two minutes before. “But your Grunkle takes care of his family, even if it’s _from_ his family.”

Not understanding his cryptic words, I turned my eyes back to the flower, gently thumbing apart the petals and gasping when something bright caught my attention. “Grunkle Stan!” I cried incredulously, clutching the flower so tightly to my chest that it almost hurt. “The star piece! Why on _earth_ do you have it?!”

“Ford got too excited,” the older man chuckled, wiping a thumb under his nose as he smirked. “Always does, the nerd. Left it and the flower on the dining room table. And, as far as I’m aware, you found it first, sweetie.” He suddenly leaned down, placing a hand over my own and guiding my fingers to clasp the cool rock between them protectively. “And it’s _yours._ Those two can fight me if they want, but nothing on this earth is going to take that star piece or that flower away from you, okay?”

My eyes stung at his words and I nodded mutely, hoping that he could see the genuine gratefulness in my watery gaze. Stan huffed out a short laugh under his breath before ruffling my hair, half-heartedly muttering about kids these days making him soft.

“You going to be good for a little while?” he asked, groaning as he straightened his stiff back. “You’re more than welcome to come sit down in the lounge and watch trash with me.”

“I’m good,” I responded, smiling softly back up at him. “Could use the quiet to… sort through my head, ya know?”

“Absolutely, sweetie.”

And, with just a small backwards glance, I was once more left to my own devices.

In the quiet that followed, I found myself examining the crumpled flower in my hands. There was no doubt in my mind that it would have withered away if I hadn’t begun pressing it between the pages of my journal. My journal which was currently in my Grunkle Ford’s hands as he hunted down the rest of its kind… in search of star shards… one of which was in my grasp.

As carefully as I could, I let the star piece fall into my palm, preparing to drop it at the first sign of heat. It was warm to the touch but only reassuringly so—almost as if it were trying to exude a comforting aura into my chilled bones. I left the flower on the foot of my bed before turning back to the shard, studying it cautiously against the light.

The points were jagged and looked wickedly sharp—almost like a fragment of glass with the shine of a cut diamond—but it felt strangely smooth in my grasp. The juxtaposition didn’t make any sense and, yet, there was something so very natural about holding the piece, like I was meant to curl my fingers as tight around it as possible and—

_…Hello?_

The voice was like an electric shock up my spine, every bone in my body locking up at the voice that was not my own whispering in my mind. A part of me tried to jolt and drop the shard but my fingers stayed locked around it, a frighteningly intense feeling of protectiveness filling me at the idea of dropping it.

“…Hi?” I whispered shakily, eyes darting around to try and find where the voice came from. It had been sweet and lilting, a calmness to it that tried to undo the knots of tension forming in my hunched shoulders. “Who’s there?”

_…Star?_

“…Star?” I repeated, voice cracking as warmth pulsed from the shard in my hand. I scooted back against the wooden floor until I was pressed against the side of my bed, cupping my hands around the piece and staring at it through the cracks of my fingers. “Are… are you the star?”

_…Star… shards… M… abel…_

A chill tried to race down my spine at the fading echoes of my name, stopping only when a strange calmness continued to soak into my skin. Whatever was happening, I knew beyond a doubt that the star was doing it.

But… did that mean it was sentient?

“How are you talking?” I whispered, my words coming out even and, surprisingly, curious. The panic that had spiked beneath my skin, even before the words that were not my own had hummed in the back of my head, was now completely gone. My thoughts came gently and unrushed, like a gentle creek branching into thousands of pools at its own pace.

_…Shards… closer… someone has… found me…_

_“I’ll be… together soon.”_

The Words had taken on a more solid quality, as if they were on the brink of being able to materialise in the physical world. The realisation of the Star’s words hit me and I sucked in a breath, clutching the piece tighter against my chest. Dipper and Grunkle Ford must have found the other shards and were on their way back to the shack.

They’d know the shard was missing.

“ _Stop._ ”

Before the panic could even begin to take root, the calming force of the piece began to sink into my veins and I relaxed. I pulled my knees up to my chest and stayed where I was, still staring down at the sparkling jewel in my palms.

“ _Mabel, do not be… frightened… This piece… is… yours. Please… keep us safe…_ ”

“Us?” I whispered, staring out through the triangular window to the setting sun. I held the piece up to that fading light, sucking in a breath of awe as the piece glowed like the star it was.

And so did I.

“ _Us._ ”

My skin had become almost translucent, a glow seeping out that was as warm and golden as the sun. It was reminiscent of the night the Siren had been burnt to a crisp and I flinched, realising that it really hadn’t been a bad dream or a tired hallucination.

I’d done it.

I’d killed the creature.

I’d burnt so brightly that her shadow was forever branded into the forest floor.

“I don’t understand,” I gasped, struggling to get the words past the lump in my throat. “What… am I?”

“ _Isn’t it… obvious?_ ” it asked, the sweet lilt of its voice like a gentle caress. As the sun sunk below the horizon and the sky was dyed a dark lilac, the star piece’s glow became a soft, cool white, my skin following suit. “ _Mabel… Shooting… Star…_ ”

And, once more, my mind was filled with blue fire and a maniacal laugh. Swallowing heavily, I shifted, pulling my blankets down to wrap around my shoulders in one of the most comforting arrangements I knew.

“ _It’s more than a nickname, Star…_ ”

“This can’t be real,” I whispered, burying myself so deeply into the comforter that it almost contained the glow of my skin. “You’re saying that I’m a… a what? A star? I can’t be! Dipper and I are twins and we have a family—none of _them_ look like a light bulb.”

Gentle laughter, as soft as the tide streaming over rounded rocks, filled my mind, nearly making me smile in response. “ _I like this metaphor,_ ” the voice, I was becoming more and more sure it was female, giggled, words becoming stronger. I could only assume its shards were getting closer. “ _We’re a special part of the zodiac… we exist as a literal form of our namesake… did Dipper not become a pine tree at one point?_ ”

“You know my brother?” I asked, beyond surprised.

“ _We’re the same, Mabel,_ ” the star whispered, phantom hands gently running through my hair. “ _The same star… I can’t wait for you to understand…_ ”

And, as if a plug had been pulled, the voice and the glow faded from existence.

In the silence that followed, I let my thoughts become consumed by this newest development. In all honesty, stranger things had happened in Gravity Falls, so it wasn’t like it was completely unbelievable, but this just seemed to be pushing the boundaries. Being a literal star…

It was just too far-fetched.

And yet, it made sense too.

As much as I hated that this was going to be another lie on top of everything else, I knew I couldn’t let Ford or Dipper find out that I had a shard of the star. Sure, Stan knew but he also thought it was harmless and would probably chew off his own arm before he gave it back to Ford. Some kind of deep possessiveness made me curl the piece into my palms as tight as I could, memorising each intricate curve and ridge until I knew it as well as the back of my hands. It felt like a part of myself, a part that half of me was still arguing against, calling this whole situation preposterous.

And yet, I couldn’t deny that it felt as if I had found a piece of myself.

As the darkness began to sink into the attic, I knew Grunkle Ford and Dipper would be on their way back. With the knowledge came the realisation that I needed to find a hiding spot for the shard—one that I could keep on my person, both to sate my newfound possessiveness and to keep my Grunkle and twin from taking it back. As my previous locket had been destroyed the night the Siren had chased me, I figured that using one of my older, duller lockets to contain it would be the least conspicuous spot—at least until Ford made me a new one.

The metal of the locket pressed heavily into my sternum, an almost reassuring, silent hum travelling from it into my chest. The calm that the piece had brought me before slowly began to seep back into my skin and I relaxed, finally feeling as if this might work.

That I might really get to… _keep_ the star piece.

A warm giddiness, one I hadn’t felt since before Bill had torn apart so much of my life with his chaotic agenda, began to surge through my chest. Somehow, it didn’t seem to matter that I hadn’t taken my meds in the last couple of days—the edge of my darker thoughts was blanketed by the warmth of the shard against my ribs.

I placed a hand over the locket, unable to help seeing myself in the way that the… s _hard…_ had described. With the piece on me, I could see the gaping holes in my own soul, cracked at the edges and ready to snap. I could almost believe that I was missing pieces… star dust and shards lost when I needed them so—

_Crash!_

I was startled from my looping thoughts when the front door slammed open, excited feet thundering across the shack’s gift shop floor before the vending machine door swung open and closed. The boys were back, most likely with every single broken piece they could find. With the fear of getting caught, eagerness began to tug at my stomach in funny, twisting ways, reminding me that, with the star on its way to being whole again, I would finally get all of my answers. I just had to be patient.

And very, very careful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, it's starting to come together!
> 
> Got a bunch of things on the table to come: Mabel exploring what it means to be a star, what it means for the rest of the Shards to be in Ford's experiments, and what might happen if a supposedly-dead dream demon gets his hands on the Shooting Star, A.K.A. Mabel.   
> Hopefully this isn't lagging too much, I just don't wanna vomit up all the plot too soon so that it's worth reading ya know.
> 
> Also, I'm still new on AO3 so I haven't figured out yet if I'm meant to respond to comments or not... I will figure it out, don't worry. Until then, thank you for the kudos and comments!


	6. Halves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The star is being reassembled and Mabel begins to question what that might mean for her.

The second I woke up, five things became abundantly clear to me.

The first was that the bed on the opposite side of the attic was empty and still perfectly made-up. I could see my signature still written all over the handiwork, the pillows precisely aligned and fluffed, meaning that my nerd brother hadn’t so much as sat on it.

The second, more pressing realisation, was that the pendant in the hollow of my throat was glowing brightly through the cracks. The sun poured freely through the triangular window and I smiled goofily, opening the locket to look at the responding shard.

The third was that the smell of burnt material stung my nose and made me gag, throwing my covers away from my body in alarm. Scorch marks marred the duvet in perfect circular burns, resembling the softly glowing pendant a little too much for my own comfort. A similar set of burns had destroyed the front of my nightgown, almost completely obscuring the floppy disk design by replacing it with patches of my skin. A quick glance through the holes confirmed my growing suspicions—the skin of my chest was still as smooth and untouched as the night before.

The fourth was far more pleasant. Unlike the night before, when the voice of the star was scattered and coming in short bursts like meaningless static, a continuous melody was hummed in the back of my head. The voice was like warm honey—whole again and so very smooth and sweet. I could feel their contentment, a warmth to them that helped me come to my fifth realisation.

All of the star pieces were in the shack.

I could _feel them_ , collected together under the floorboards in the basement—could _feel_ the way they thrummed in sync with my pulse. If I had any doubt the night before about the star’s words, they were gone when I felt the deep connection with the shards, almost as if they were mere extensions of my nerves instead of crystalline rocks.

_“Good morning, my Star,”_ the voice in the back of my head hummed, the shard in my hand glowing contentedly.

“Good morning,” I whispered back, still lost in the confusion of these new sensations. I could almost feel the cool air of the basement against the back of my neck, could almost see the flash of a six-fingered hand as my Grunkle tiredly turned a shard over in his hands. “…Wow…”

“ _Intense, isn’t it?_ ” the voice chuckled, helping to soothe the sparks of discomfort that arose from these new feelings. “ _It will all become normal soon, I promise, and, when all of our pieces are back together… we will feel so much better._ ”

“Bet it’ll be hard to focus,” I snorted, laying a cool hand to my forehead. There was a pulsing heat beneath the skin there, a calm storm that knew it could be so much more if I let the heat out. “I mean… wow… It feels like I’m down in the basement. I didn’t think I’d really… be the shards, you know?”

“ _Everything will make sense,_ ” the voice continued, chipper in a way that really was only reminiscent of my own jolliness. It brought an eager grin to my face as I hopped out of bed, frowning once more when I saw the charred remains of my nightie.

“Hey, Shard? Can I call you Shard?” I asked, feeling a little bad when I suddenly realised that I had never stopped to ask what I should call the voice. As if sensing my sheepishness (of course it did, it was in my head after all) a phantom hand smoothed over my hair fondly, trying to reassure me that all was well.

“ _Shard is fine, my Star,_ ” they giggled, giddy and obviously excited about being so close to the rest of the shards. “ _What can I do for you?_ ”

“How do I _not_ combust my clothes and blankets in my sleep?” I asked, slightly exasperated at the idea of having to wear my second favourite nightgown. Plus, it was going to be a nightmare to explain the state of the duvet to Stan. “Am I going to keep doing this? What are… what are we capable of now?”

“ _Don’t fret, my Star,_ ” they soothed immediately, pulsing softly to try and draw my attention down to it. “ _You will learn to control it, I promise. Last night was… a bit intense for all of the shards, finally being so close to our Star, so we… got a bit excited._ ”

“They were excited to be near me?” I asked in genuine awe, gently closing the locket so that I could search for some clothes. The warmth in my chest was an unstoppable force at this point, the dark thoughts that usually hung around in the morning being no match for it.

“ _We’ve been waiting for you for millennia, my Star,_ ” it continued, making a noise of excitement when we came upon one of my more glittery sweaters. “ _We were whole once but… the zodiac required us to be in a human vessel and… it broke us…_ ”

I paused in the process of slipping on my sweater, holding the knitted material tightly in strangely shaking fists. “It… broke us?” I asked, hating the dark insinuation of the words. “Is that why you’re… _we’re_ in pieces?”

There was an inaudible nod in my head, almost as if I could feel the action of the shard’s consciousness. “ _Yes. For… Cipher to be defeated—_ ” I tried so hard not to shudder at his name. “ _—All the members of the zodiac had to exist at the same time, in the same space… in the same vessels. So… we could never be whole, not really, until everyone else existed. Axolotl would merely keep separating us if you were brought back too early._ ”

“Axolotl?” I asked, snorting a little to myself at the idea of a walking fish trying to break a star. I sobered up immediately, however, when I felt the turmoil of the piece around my neck, making me realise that this had been a very literal thing that had happened. “…I’m so sorry.”

“ _It is fine, my Star,_ ” it hummed back, trying to regain some of its cheer when I pulled the glittery sweater over my head. “ _They are… a Great Being. Protector of everything that has and will ever exist. One day, when we are whole, let us meet them again in the sky._ ”

“That sounds nice,” I quickly assured them, trying to push the thoughts of somehow ending up as a literal star in the sky to the back of my mind. It was still far too early to worry about that, let alone what would happen if Ford and Dipper were able to reassemble the star’s pieces. “So, really, I was the missing piece then that you all were waiting for?”

“ _You are us. Just… incomplete. We are your missing pieces, waiting for you until you are ready to have us back with you._ ” I glanced at myself in the mirror, staring straight at the gold pendant that sat snugly against the material of my navy sweater. Glitter was strewn throughout the loops, shiny stones sewn into the material to recreate the night sky. Now I understood why the shard had been so excited about it, it felt an awful lot like going home. “ _You are the incomplete puzzle, our only purpose is to complete_ you. _After all, the zodiac required a_ human _star. We had to be separated for you to fit that vessel._ ”

“I… think I understand,” I finally stated, mulling over all of this new information in my head. Finally satisfied with my appearance, I hurried down the stairs, careful not to speak aloud to the shard now that other people could hear me.

Down in the kitchen, my journal sat on the table, a quick apology for taking it without permission scrawled on a hastily-written note beside it. Looking at the script, I couldn’t decide if it had been written by Dipper trying to copy Ford’s careful loops or by Ford in such a rush that it came out a lot sharper and scratchier than usual. Shrugging, I made my way over to the coffee pot and switched it on, knowing that the sooner it was full of fuel-for-the-soul, the sooner the two geniuses would come back upstairs. As bitter coffee began to fill the jug, the aromatic scent stirred Stan from his slumber on the couch, having fallen asleep there with the TV still blasting Ducktective from the previous night.

“Morning,” I greeted, pouring Stan a cup when the machine was done. Cream and sugar accompanied the brew and, by the time my Grunkle had stepped into the kitchen, I had placed his mug and the morning paper at his spot at the table.

“Mornin’, Pumpkin,” he rumbled, voice still rough from sleep. He took a long swig of his drink before rubbing the sleep from his eyes, squinting as he tried to see without his glasses. “Did the nerds come home at all? Do I need to release the hounds?”

The ‘hounds’ really translated to Waddles, and the wandering goat if we could find him, and I giggled, imagining the looks on both of our twins’ faces if they had to be tracked down by farm animals.

“Nah, they’re home,” I reassured, patting his hairy arm before going to get a glass of Mabel juice from the fridge. “Down in their nerd basement doing nerd things.”

“Hey, careful with the nerd talk. As far as that journal of yours goes, you’re starting to turn into a nerd yourself.”

I let out a faux enraged gasp, whirling around with the jug in one hand and a cup in the other. “How _dare_ you!” I playfully snapped, trying and failing to keep the amusement from my face. “You watch that mouth, old man, or else I’m going to wash it out with soap! Honestly, the nerve!”

“Hey, I’m not _that_ old,” he huffed back in response, trying to hide his shit-eating grin behind the rim of his mug.

We shared a familiar laugh, the two of us drifting off into companionable silence. I had just downed my first glass of Mabel juice when a jolt of electricity lanced up my spine, every sensation becoming so terrifyingly intense for a microsecond that my fingers loosened around the cup. The plastic bounced harmlessly off of the tiles and I sucked in a sharp breath, internally screaming in fear at what that sensation had been.

“Pumpkin?” Stan asked worriedly, the paper shifting so that he could look at me. My back was to him, and it was only the worry that my face might worry my Grunkle that I managed to school my expression before I turned around.

“Whoops!” I laughed, hiding the shake in my voice under a layer of forced giggles as I bent to retrieve my cup. “It’s too early, I’m such a klutz at this time of day!”

The false bravado seemed to do the trick and my Grunkle returned to his paper, chuckling quietly to himself. I turned back around the second his gaze left me, bracing against the counter with jerky, alarmed movements as I tried to sort through the new sensations arcing through my body.

_New sensations?_

With the thought came the realisation of what had happened. The shard was excitedly celebrating in the back of my head, the two of us feeling the shards below us beginning to be reassembled. The jolt had been new connections being made in my—their— _our_ minds, so overwhelming for my fragile human body that I couldn’t contain the reaction.

_What does this mean, Shard?_

_“Our pieces are connecting! Your blood family is making stunning progress!”_

And, as I feigned nonchalance by refilling my glass, I realised that the shard was right. I reached down into the depths of the basement to the extensions of my mind, feeling out the new formation of shards that, together, made up a crystal the size of a ping pong ball. As the pieces came together, so too did the consciousness of the individual pieces, all of them slowly melding together until they were once more a singular line of thought.

_“We’re halfway there, my Star!”_

_Halfway…?_

The crude smell of burning plastic began to intensify and, with a start, I could see the plastic cup in my hand beginnings to melt beneath my fingers. It didn’t surprise me anywhere near as much as I thought it would and I quickly left the kitchen, dumping the cup in the trash while calling a quick farewell to my Grunkle.

“Okay, we really need to learn to control this whole ‘inferno body’ thing,” I grumbled, ducking outside and heading for the tree-line.

“ _Sorry, my Star, I think we are all just a bit excited…_ ” the Shard apologised, though I could almost feel their gleeful grin. “ _Perhaps it might be beneficial to practise controlling your radiance?_ ”

“My radiance,” I repeated, snorting a little as I tested the term on my tongue. “Is there anything else about my ‘radiance’ I should be worried about? Cause, I’m not sure if you realise but I kind of don’t want to tell my Grunkle Ford that you think I’m a star.”

“ _You_ are _a Star though._ ”

“Be that as it may,” I huffed, stopping when I thought I was a decent enough distance from the shack. “I don’t… I don’t want them to know what happened with the Siren…”

The twisted imprint of a figure burnt forever into the forest floor shot through my head once more, a constant mantra of guilt at actually killing a creature repeating like a broken record. I leant against a tree, trying to focus on the rough bark beneath my palm to try and centre myself. Instead, I recoiled mere seconds later as the scent of burning pine invaded my senses and I whimpered lowly to myself, staring at the burnt handprint.

“ _My Star, surely they will not blame you for—_ ”

“They won’t and that’s the problem!” I yelled, throwing my hands up in frustration. The unearthly golden glow beneath my skin began to burn once more, my anger at everything finally becoming too much seeming to draw the energy to the surface. “They’re just so _good_ and _wonderful_ and… and…”

The glow receded at my stutter, fading to a soft white as my anger immediately seeped into discontentment and worry.

“And I’m… not,” I whispered, remembering what the unicorn had said to me years before.

I knew that poor excuse of a horse hadn’t actually been reading my heart—and she was genuinely such a terrible creature—but those words had stuck with me for so very long. It made me realise how terribly selfish I had acted throughout that summer, taking Dipper away from his adventures, not realising Bill had possessed him… It was hard to remember why I had thought myself so pure and good before that moment.

“They won’t even _question_ the fact that I killed a creature… and that’s what scares me most, Shard,” I finally say, running my hands gently over each other to try and cup the glow. “They just want me alive and safe. But if I have all of this power you keep telling me about then I should have been able to protect myself without hurting that creature!”

There was silence in my head for such a long time that, for a split second, I began to wonder if I really had just imagined the voice this whole time. But then those phantom hands began to run through my hair once more, so gentle and comforting that I felt the tension, and my glow, begin to recede back.

“ _My Star,_ ” they whispered, their voice the gentlest that I had heard so far. “ _Your powers are so closely tied with your emotions, you could not have stopped that fear from protecting you even if we had been whole._ ”

There was such surety in their words that, for a moment, I was almost inclined to believe it. Though it still didn’t excuse the fact that I had killed the Siren, I felt the tight coil of guilt begin to ease from around my throat a bit, making it just a little easier to breathe.

“ _But I also respect your decision to keep this from your blood kin, my Star,_ ” they continued, flooding my senses with the reassurance of the half of the star that had become whole. “ _So, let us see how we can go about helping you to control your radiance._ ”

And, despite the emotions running through my head, I still snorted at the word ‘radiance’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the new kudos! It makes my day to see that people are enjoying reading this as much as I enjoy writing it.
> 
> Thought I might give a quick explanation for the phantom hand comments-- Since the shards are connected to Mabel's consciousness, they can influence what she is able to feel (though they don't abuse that of course), and will often use it to comfort her by patting her hair and whatnot.
> 
> Next chapter-- Ford and Dipper will finally emerge from the basement!


	7. Blue Fire, White Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel's powers are tied to her emotions.
> 
> Dipper gets angry and our Star only has so much control over her light.  
> But, in the shadows, another player awaits his chance to re-join the game.
> 
> And play he will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got so excited about writing this chapter that I couldn't stop writing until this was done.  
> Hopefully this chapter answers a lot of questions and sets us up for a wild story to come.  
> Hope you all enjoy it!

By the time the Shard and I returned to the shack, the sun was close to setting and Ford and Dipper were passed out on the couch.

We’d spent the last few hours searching for new patches of flowers, heavily avoiding where the shards had been discovered. I knew those flowers had likely been destroyed in my family’s search and I couldn’t help the pang of mourning that tried to crush my heart. As we’d gone, the Shard and I had tried a few gentle exercises—forcing emotions to see which garnered a reaction from the piece and me and then trying to channel them into action. By the end, though I still didn’t have full control over the glow or the heat beneath my skin, I felt sure enough in my progress to not destroy anything else accidentally.

“Did they sleep at all today?” I asked, ducking my head around the corner of the loungeroom to check on our twins. They were both curled up on the couch, Dipper’s legs tossed over Ford’s and looking as if he were about to fall off the cushions any second.

“Do they ever?” Stan grumbled back, not bothering to bite back his annoyance as he set about making dinner. From the looks of it, he was making a stew, the bubbling concoction releasing such a beautiful scent that my stomach rumbled angrily. “Did you even eat today?” he asked sharply, looking over his shoulder with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

“Mabel juice counts, right?”

He let out the loudest sigh I had ever heard and I stifled my giggle, going over to his side to give him a quick hug. “All three of you are gonna be the end of me,” Stan grunted, returning the hug nonetheless and giving me a squeeze as quick assurance that he wasn’t really angry. Suddenly, he let his eyes fixate on me for a few moments, a small frown knitting his brows together as he seemingly found something unsettling. “Pumpkin, you been taking your medicine?”

Ice seemed to shoot down my spine and I quickly ducked back, shame twisting my stomach so fiercely that I thought I might vomit. At my reaction, my Grunkle was quick to reassure me, holding his hands up placatingly until he was certain I was ready to be touched again.

“Hey, hey, not mad, sweetie!” he said quickly, hovering over me as soothingly as possible until I went back into his waiting arms. He squeezed me as tight as he could without hurting me, running a soothing hand through my hair to try and ease the last of the panic from my body. “I know sometimes you just… can’t take it. That’s fine, sweetie, just know I’m here for ya. I won’t tell our brothers but please try to go back on them soon, okay?”

I nodded mutedly against his shoulder, content to let myself be cuddled for just a touch longer before finally extricating myself from the embrace. “Thanks, Grunkle Stan,” I sniffed, rubbing at my throat to try and offset how tight it felt. “You’re the only one who doesn’t… you know… get upset when I go off them.”

Stan merely shrugged, picking me up gently and depositing me on the counter beside the stove. “Sometimes heads can be butts,” Stan answered, returning to stirring the stew with practised ease. “Guilting you ain’t gonna make you go back on them quicker.” He glanced at me from the corner of his eyes, a rare, nervous twitch betraying the confidence that he was trying to put on while having this conversation with me. “…You know I love you right, Mabel?”

Of all the things I thought he might say, that had not been one of them. Dipper and I both knew our Grunkles loved us to the moon and back, maybe even some more, but there was almost never an instant where either of them mentioned the words ‘love’ and ‘you’ in the same sentence. They were born in a different time with very different parents—and I wondered how often Stan had actually been told that he was loved as a child. So, for my Grunkle to be saying it to me right now…

He must have been really worried.

“I love you too, silly,” I whispered back, trying to play the words off but unable to stop the warmth that spread throughout my chest. At the last second, at the Shard’s prompting, I was able to curb the glow that tried to escape from beneath my skin.

The two of us remained staring at each other for a few more moments until, with just a small, uncertain smile from my Grunkle, he turned back to the pot of stew. Afterwards, we both faded into a comfortable silence, the clinking of the wooden spoon hitting the bottom of the pot forming a calming melody.

An hour passed in relative peace before dinner was ready. With a quiet grumble about his back, Stan went to go wake up the nerds, leaving me to set the table and pour drinks. When it came time to move my journal, a pang in my chest made me turn to my last entry—the flowers that had held the star shards. I let my knuckles linger along the curves of the petals, getting charcoal on my fingers and humming quietly to myself at how poetically precise the action was.

I had the flowers’ deaths on my hands.

_“My Star…”_

Before I could get too stuck in the memories, Grunkle Ford stumbled around the corner and froze in the doorway, his big, bloodshot eyes widening at the sight of me. It was silent for a second, the two of us watching each other before I shut my journal and put it under my chair, trying to hide it from his sight. For some reason that didn’t quite make sense to me, I didn’t want him to know that his actions had hurt me— we had been getting along so well that I was insecure at the idea of losing his approval and love.

Ford opened his mouth, about to say something to cut through the tension, but Stan guiding a stumbling Dipper into the kitchen tore the moment down before it could start. Stan, ever as unobservant as he was, didn’t seem to notice what he had interrupted and I could have kissed him for it.

“It smells delicious, Grunkle Stan!” I called, grinning brightly as I ran over to his and Dipper’s side. I offered the older man a quick half-hug before taking the weight of my twin onto my shoulders, giving him a quick little shake as I brought him over to his chair. “Come on, Dip Dop! Dinner time! You need lots of energy if you wanna keep science-ing with Grunkle Ford.”

“Yeah, yeah…” he mumbled, half-heartedly swiping at me to leave him be. I giggled and skipped out of his reach, retaking my own chair between him and Grunkle Stan.

“Thought you lot could use some iron in ya,” Stan called, portioning out the food and placing them in front of us. “Lord knows the nerdlings don’t get much sunlight.”

“I resent that,” Ford grouched back, narrowing his eyes at his brother before beginning to attack the food with the enthusiasm of a starved man.

“And yet, my point is proven.”

Dipper, who still seemed to be fast asleep in his chair, fumbled for his drink during the argument that seemed to follow. Somewhere in the back of my head, I realised that his beverage wasn’t the normal colour of the soft drink he so loved. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, the floating glitter looked like—

“Dipper, wait—!” I tried to warn but it was too late. The second he brought the glass to his lips, he was spitting the drink back out, dousing both of our Grunkles opposite him with the Mabel Juice I had accidentally given him.

The boy gasped and choked, smacking himself on the chest with more drama than I really thought was necessary. The drink wasn’t that bad but he carried on, like usual, as if he had been poisoned. While Stan looked at him with fond annoyance as he wiped the glitter and sugar water from his glasses, Ford looked at the boy with a hint of sympathy.

“ _Mabel!_ ” Dipper gasped, turning angry, alert eyes onto me.

I opened my mouth, apologies on the tip of my tongue but I felt the words shrivel up at the look Dipper was shooting my way. I knew it was a combination of being hungry and sleep deprived, but the amount of venom in my twin’s eye almost felt as if it were truly burning my soul. The excuse of having mixed up our drinks felt as if it would fall on deaf ears and, as I shrunk back in preparation for the tirade I knew he was about to go on, I realised something terrifying.

In that moment, I felt genuine fear for my twin.

Dipper’s mouth opened but, before a word could escape, a sharp alarm blared through the house, startling everyone at the table. The angry expression on Dipper’s face was quickly exchanged for trepidation and excitement before he and Ford bolted back for the vending machine. Through the confusion, the only thing that I could make out from their garbled calls was that the star was releasing massive amounts of energy, setting off all of Ford’s machines. The pendant beneath my sweater began to burn, the heat it released not affecting my skin but making the crude smell of burning yarn invade my nostrils.

“ _My Star—!_ ”

Bile burned at the back of my throat as the world turned hazy, everything tilting 90 degrees to the right. The floor rushed up to meet me, the cool tiles against my skin feeling like a fever cascading through my body. Without even hearing the worried calls or Stan’s hand trying to grab me, I bolted, my body moving faster than it ever had before. The second I was out of the house, the glow beneath my skin exploded outwards, no longer able to be contained with all of the emotions racing through me.

As I ran, I could see through the rest of my pieces—I was so close to being completed that energy poured through me like an unstoppered fountain. I felt like I was drowning in it as I hit the tree line, trying my best to try and clear my lungs enough to breathe but the energy was just too much. I was suffocating in it, I was burning and I was surely dying—

_Well, well, well! If it isn’t Shooting Star!_

The echoes of Bill’s voice in my mind sent shivers so cold down my spine that it burned. I kept running, suddenly unsure if I was running from my own powers, the look of unbridled rage in Dipper’s eyes or the phantom echoes of a demon that had been a click of his fingers away from killing me. I noticed distantly that, like Bill’s own blue flames, my limbs were slowly becoming enveloped in white fire, my internal glow no longer being able to be contained by my skin.

“Help!” I gasped, my words coming out as white smoke.

My lungs were on fire, they had to be. There was no other way to describe this fire in my veins. I was being consumed, half my mind focused on running as far from the shack as I possibly could while the other was staring through my broken pieces at my Grunkle. I was in a tube, the glass containing me getting so hot that I had to be handled with industrial welding gloves so I didn’t hurt my family. I was nearly whole, the last of my fractured shards beginning to rise into the air—

And slammed into the glass, shattering the tube.

Ford dropped it back to the table, grabbing Dipper and ducking behind the protective shield in the lab. There were alarms blaring everywhere, energy readings going off the charts, but I barely heard it over the sensation of my last few pieces slotting into place.

Bar the one around my neck.

“Oh God…” I whispered, fingers shaking as I raised them to my face. My steps faltered, feeling like jelly as I tried so hard to differentiate where I ended and the star began.

_Powerful, isn’t it?_

Bill’s echoing voice startled me from my haze, my eyes blinking through blurred lenses. My nerves were fried, my focus drifting too often between my bodies to realise how terrifying it was to be hearing the voice of a dream demon we had annihilated.

At least… we thought we had…

_A-X-O-L-O-T-L! MY TIME HAS COME TO BURN, I INVOKE THE ANCIENT POWER THAT I MAY RETURN!_

The words spiralled through my mind, playing backwards and forwards so many times that I felt caught in them. The shard in my mind was screeching the name ‘Axolotl’ over and over again, a palpable fear becoming the only part of their consciousness I could feel. As Dipper and Ford carefully put my star into a new container, watching it in fascination, I found myself in a clearing, staring straight into the stone eye of Bill’s statue.

“You.”

The rage that filled me at seeing the statue, knowing that it had been sitting here, completely intact, all of these years, completely bypassed whatever flimsy control I had thought I had established this afternoon. I was an inferno, burning with the wrath of a star scorned. All I knew was white-hot fire, burning in my veins and swallowing greedily at the oxygen around me.

This stone was the reason my family had become so torn apart. Why Stan sometimes stared from the back porch, lost in memories that he didn’t think were his. Why Dipper woke up screaming some nights, unable to be consoled until we video-called our Grunkles to check on them. Why Ford kept looking over his shoulder when he thought no-one was looking, expecting to see the dream demon trying to sneak up on him.

Why I was so certain that everyone would abandon me one day.

“You…” I whispered, clenching my jaw so tightly that I swear I could hear my teeth creak. I stared at the statue, seeing nothing but his phantom blue flames rising up to meet my corporeal white ones. “…You hurt _everyone!_ ” I finally screamed, so consumed in my hate that I didn’t hear the frantic calls of my shard. I lifted my hand, fuelling all of my hatred into my palm, all of my pain and suffering coalescing into a ball of pure ivory-coloured fire.

And I threw it at the statue.

Fire engulfed it immediately, a terrifying roar filling the air that was a combination of the stone crumbling and Bill’s maniacal, distorted laughter. Beneath the grey slate, yellow burned at my retinas, the sight quelling my rage and replacing it immediately with fear.

_Oh no…_

My flames were extinguished immediately, cold dread dripping in rivulets down my spine as the last of the stones fell away from Bill’s body. His large eye blinked, slowly and sluggishly, almost as if he were waking from a deep sleep. Eventually, his large, extended pupil languidly swung around to focus on me, his lids curling in his distorted version of a delighted smile.

“Oh ho!” he laughed, springing into the air so suddenly that I fell back into the grass. “Shooting star? Fancy seeing you here!” Colour bled from our surroundings, the only hue remaining being his vivid yellow, my own palette and the golden glow of the pendant around my neck. “Thanks for letting me out! I was starting to get a crick in my neck. Hah! I don’t have a neck.”

“…Bill?” I squeaked, arms shaking so vigorously that I couldn’t seem to draw the strength to move away. “…But… _how?!_ ”

“If you have to ask that, Shooting Star, then you obviously aren’t whole yet!” he explained, floating forward so suddenly I didn’t have time to flinch. His cane materialised in his hand and he gently rapped it against my skull. “A shooting star missing its pieces can’t very well hope to compete with the big boys yet!”

“You… wait,” I said, startled out of my fear to look at the creature of my nightmares in confusion. “You _knew?!_ ”

“Uh… _duh!_ ” he laughed, bopping my nose with the cane before retracting it. “I’m _millions_ of years old kid! I remember when Axolotl first asked you to fall! He needed a fail-safe, couldn’t have me running around causing havoc. Made a deal—I didn’t interfere with the zodiac being born so long as, if they succeeded, I had a chance to come back.” He winked at me, an air of condescension and joy at my fear radiating off of him. “And _guess who released me?!_ ”

A shriek tried to bubble up from the base of my throat but I found my voice caught, panic and confusion trying to fight for dominance. “You knew…” I finally whispered, words catching in my throat as I forced them past clenched teeth. Cipher watched me in interest, waving his hand as if prompting me to continue. “Is… is that why you were going to…”

“Kill you?” he finished when he became impatient, the world around us fading to a grey scale version of Weirdmageddon. There, Bill held Dipper and I over our trapped Grunkles, eyes flashing between the Pine Tree and the Shooting Star symbols with his hand raised—

“ _Stop it!_ ” I shrieked, clapping my hands over my head to try and protect myself from his wrath. When no laughter came, I cautiously removed my hands from my head, staring when I noticed we were back in the forest dreamscape. Bill was quietly watching me, posture relaxed but with an air of contemplation.

“I was curious,” he admitted honestly, rubbing at the area under his eye as if it were his chin. “About striking a star stuck in her human form.” He hovered a little closer, ruffling my hair and backing off before I could raise my hands to swat at him. “But, even incomplete, I know you wouldn’t have died, Shooting Star. You’re too powerful for that.”

“What?” I blinked up at him, words screeching to a halt in my mind as I tried to process his unusual candour.

“Stars are pretty big deals in the multiverse, kiddo,” he explained, crossing his legs as he floated above me. “They leave the affairs of its inhabitants to their own devices but they’re celestial beings. You’ll find that out when Sixer puts you back together, I’m sure.”

“If I’m so powerful,” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. “Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

He shrugged back, leaning back a little as I considered blasting him with another round of fire. “When you’re whole, there are rules to play by,” he answered, picking at his non-existent nails. “Man, your shards should have been telling you this, not me! Anyway, I’m a dream demon, you get?” At my answering, wary nod he continued, rolling as if this were a friendly conversation between two friends. “And stars are bound by their morals. They follow their code of complete neutrality—they don’t get involved in _any_ universe’s drama unless big ole Axolotl has anything to do with it, or...”

He let the sentence hang, holding his hand out as if he were trying to get me to engage back. “Or?” I whispered, uncertainly glancing up at him and the glee in his eyes. “Or what?”

“Or!” he called, gleefully hovering a little closer. “Someone steals their physical body or shards!”

Their...

Shards?

I blinked, suddenly feeling as if the world was tilting to the side once more. Bill let out a raucous laugh, holding his sides as if his triangular form might come apart at the seams.

“I don’t mess with stars ‘cause I know they won’t mess with me!” he continued gleefully, beginning to rise higher and higher into the air before I could realise what he was doing. “Soon as your pieces are back together and you are ‘all powerful’ again, Shooting Star, you won’t be allowed to meddle unless someone has your body!”

With a burst of blue flames, he was gone.

And I was alone once more.


	8. Bound by Our Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when things begin to look better for Mabel, another level of complexity adds to her list of growing problems:
> 
> 1\. She's a literal star  
> 2\. Bill's been released  
> 3\. If her pieces are put back together, she will be bound to the laws of neutrality and can't protect her family.
> 
> Now though, Ford and Dipper begin their own experiments.

The locket never left my sight after that.

With the knowledge that Bill was back, I knew that the star could not be completed. Though it was possible that the demon had been lying about my apparent helplessness if the star _were_ to be whole once more, I couldn’t take the chance. Besides, with the way Bill had spoken to me, with hints of curiosity and a genuinely honest tone, it was almost as if Bill had viewed me with a kind of mutual respect.

Almost like I was an equal.

For a week following the incident, I adamantly refused to take the locket off and tried to avoid Ford and Dipper as much as possible. Under normal circumstances, I knew Dipper would have noticed the change in me with just a glance but, with his attention focused solely on the star, he spared very few moments for me. Ford was only slightly better, trying to put in the effort to engage me in our daily botany talks, but it never lasted long. Soon, both men would be locked firmly down in the lab, barred to Stan and I, as they hoarded over my missing pieces.

I could tell Stan was beginning to get worried. Though he wasn’t as smart as Ford, he hadn’t survived on the streets for over a decade without having a keen eye. My moods were in constant fluctuation, reaching the peaks of joviality before dropping into melancholy and irritability for long stretches of time. On my good days, I was a muted version of the girl I had been before Bill had ruined everything, before I had realised how impure I was. On my bad days, I was a burden to my family, preparing strategies to push them away before they had the chance to abandon me.

At the end of that week, Stan finally sat me down and asked me to go back on my meds. I had been defensive at first, the low of my mood screaming at the fact that he had lied about not pressuring me to go back on them. But, when he mentioned he was getting scared and he looked at me with so much love and worry in his eyes, I realised I wasn’t ever going to be ‘ready’ to go back on the meds. So, under his watchful eyes, I restarted my dosages, giving him tight, wordless hugs when I felt the extremes of my emotions threatening to rear their ugly heads again.

One night when my mood had finally begun to settle back into its old pattern, the lights in the mystery shack decided to flicker ominously. Stan and Soos had gone for a road trip to pick up parts for the shack while the nerds were down in the basement, effectively leaving me alone in the house. Old re-runs of Ducktective had been showing so I had commandeered the empty living room for a chill-out night, a few balls of yarn waiting to be turned into sweaters to replace the few I’d lost to combustion.

At the flicker, a shudder traversed my spine, my palm quickly rising to wrap around the pendant at my chest. Warmth immediately sunk into my skin, the shard whispering soothing words into my mind as I tried to return my attention to my knitting. The calm lasted for another twenty minutes before the power flickered once more and then went out. The shack was immediately plunged into darkness, the air oppressively heavy with the inky blackness and the silence that proceeded it.

“…Shard?” I whispered, feeling my voice catch in my throat as I tried to see through the dark.

“ _Just a power outage, my Star, would you like some light?_ ”

I thought about it for a moment, tilting my head as I listened out for the sound of the basement’s emergency exit. When no clambering footsteps reached me, I knew it was safe to let my powers out for a little bit. The dead rising couldn’t drag the nerds out of their lab, after all.

“Let me try,” I whispered back, closing my eyes. Small flickers of light began to spark in my mind and I let the contentedness of the sight wash over me. As I relaxed, I felt the soft white glow begin to emanate from beneath my skin, slowly undoing the knots of darkness surrounding me.

“ _You are progressing phenomenally, my Star!_ ”

“Thanks!” I giggled, cupping my cheeks gently as I watched my skin glow. It never ceased to amaze me how beautiful the light was when it contrasted so perfectly with the dark.

For a moment, I let my consciousness slip, allowing myself to see through the rest of my pieces down in the basement. Dipper was holding a torch up for Ford as the two continued to hook wires up to the cannister holding the rest of me, their skin ghastly pale in the low light. Even from where I was, looking from a place of light onto their shadowed faces, I could easily see the bags beneath their eyes, and I felt a pang of sympathy for the two. They were working so hard on utilising something that I was purposely keeping incomplete and a small hint of guilt twisted in my gut.

“They’re working super hard, huh?” I whispered quietly as the shard and I watched the two work. “They just want answers about something so beautiful… and I’m keeping secrets from them. Again.”

“ _My Star… perhaps you should tell them about Cipher’s release?_ ”

Hearing his name no longer brought with it the dreaded chills that had previously wracked my small frame. Nevertheless, I could almost see how the conversation would destroy whatever small peace of mind everyone in the shack had built for themselves. Dipper would return to looking over his shoulder at every acute angle that came into focus while Grunkle Stan would sink back into depression, hating that he had become so incomplete for something that didn’t fix the Bill problem permanently.

And then there was Ford…

He had struggled for ten years, needing Bill like a breath of fresh air to continue in his rough life. Then, the following three decades had been filled with the terrors of the nightmare realm where the demon ruled, as well as the horror that he found in the rest of the multiverse.

“No,” I said quietly, focusing solely on my Grunkle’s aged and weary face. I could see the minute scars that peaked out from the collar of his sweater where, in his tiredness, he had allowed it to fall down some. “If Bill comes for us… I’ll stop him. So long as we aren’t completed, he wouldn’t dare to come here.”

The shard made a distressed sound in the back of my head and I could almost feel their pain. They and the rest of my pieces had been waiting millennia for me to find them and, now that I had them, we couldn’t fully be together yet.

If ever in my lifetime.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, feeling the burn of loss scald my insides at the realisation that I too was affected by this vow. It had passed my own attention, in the chaos of the last couple weeks, that I had begun to grow attached to the pieces, in mind and spirit. The star felt like a disjointed limb, an extra appendage that I was purposely denying the doctors from re-attaching it. “I’m so sorry!”

“ _Hush, my Star_ …” they whispered back, their presence an instant comfort. “ _The fact that you mourn with us gives us strength, knowing you will do everything in your power to assure your family’s safety as quickly as possible so we can be whole. What a wonderful and gracious Star we have, we are so grateful to be your missing pieces._ ”

“Selfish, you mean,” I snorted, rubbing at my burning eyes before any tears could develop. I was done with crying for a while, I needed to start getting stronger if I was going to protect my brother and Grunkles from Bill.

“ _No!_ ” they exclaimed, forceful in a way that I had never heard them before. It made me shut my mouth with an audible clack, obediently staying quiet while the shard said what they needed to. “ _My Star, you deny yourself your divinity, your place in the sky as a being on unfathomable power, to protect your mortal family! You cry for the flowers who caressed us for centuries, you preserve mortal beauty in that journal of yours, and you feel so strongly for others it is humbling! My Star, not even the most radiant of constellations in the sky could make me wish for another Star than you!_ ”

Anything that I had thought of to say immediately died in my throat at the shard’s echoed words in my mind. The sincerity in their voice, the force at which they felt they needed to imprint it upon my mind made me begin to glow brighter than before. Love for the shard, for the other pieces down in the basement echoing their sentiments, began to overcome me, and, with soft astonishment, I watched as my glow began to be tinged pink—

_Zap!_

Light flooded the house at the exact same time that a burning sensation raked its way across my back and sunk its claws into my chest. A scream bubbled up from my lungs, my shaking hands smashing a pillow against my face to stifle the uncontrollable sound that seemed to rattle my own skull. In the basement, I could see my Grunkle and brother looking amazed, looking at machines and taking recordings. The wires attached to the cannister were sparking dangerously and it hit me all too quickly, panic and horror rushing through me faster than the pain.

_They’re taking my energy—!_

The shards were shrieking along with me, my mind filling with the echoed pain of every piece that made us up. Incoherent words were tangled into a mess of cries and howls, each shard furious and hurt that my family was trying to take from us without asking—

_They don’t understand what they’re doing—!_

But, just like me, the shards were deaf to anything that wasn’t rooted in our current pain. The agony seemed to last for so very long, everything hyper focused and bright as fire burned its way beneath my skin. I gritted my teeth and waited for it to end, my small body crammed into a tight ball wrapped around the pillow I was screaming into.

When the pain finally faded, a deep ache remained, almost as if my very muscles had been electrocuted in the process. The lights above us remained on and I could hear the seething of the nearly complete star down in the basement, claiming that it was now our power that had got them back.

“ _S-Shard!_ ” I whispered shakily, trying desperately to uncurl my tensed muscles. “Are… are you okay? Are… are _we?!_ ”

It was almost like static in my head, the shards’ voices coming and going in sudden bursts that made a headache form behind my eyes. When I could finally pull myself into a sitting position, I flicked my pendant open and gripped the shard inside as hard as I could, needing its calm so badly I wished it was embedded in my skin. It was my missing piece, it needed to fill the spot that was empty—

As soon as the thought hit me, I sucked in a shaky, calming breath, reminding myself once more that the star and I were not the same body, even if we did share a mental connection. I laid my free hand over one of the middle ribs on my left side, almost feeling the missing chip in the star downstairs in that exact same spot. Warmth flooded my veins and the shard’s tired, reassuring presence washed over me, completely silent but trying to chase my panic away.

“You’re okay…” I whispered, wanting to cry and laugh at the same time as their warmth rushed over me. “Oh, thank goodness… I thought you were gone…”

“ _Would never… leave you…_ ” the words came out choppy and distorted, but they were still there, echoing in my mind, and for that I was grateful.

When I felt the shakes begin to ebb from my bones, I placed the shard back into the pendant and got to my feet. The world swayed around me but I managed to stay upright, slowly making my way to the kitchen to flick the coffee machine on. As the coffee began to brew, small bursts of pain spiked within my stomach rhythmically, only this time, I purposely kept my mind away from the star in the basement for fear of what they might be doing to it.

When the machine was done, I filled two mugs with black coffee and then made my way to the vending machine, pressing the newly-installed doorbell as I entered the lift to let the two nerds know I was coming down. As I descended, the pain faded away until, finally, I could sense that the two had halted all interactions with the star since they knew I was on my way down.

“Grunkle Ford! Dipper!” I called, forcing a cheery note into my voice as I exited the lift into the basement. Unlike earlier, there was an abundance of light, both white and blue, shining on every crevice. Just as I spotted the two nerds, Dipper threw a sheet over the cannister and the adjourning machines, smiling sheepishly back at my unimpressed scowl.

“We aren’t hiding it from you!” Dipper quickly protested, holding his hands up placatingly before I could so much as open my mouth. Ford was beside him at a panel, looking just as guilty but not moving despite it. “It’s just…”

“You guys get defensive, I know,” I intoned, rolling my eyes at their overly protective tendencies whenever they discovered something new. I knew it was born of years of insecurity, of being insulted and mocked for being different yet intelligent, and so I always did my best not to be offended by it. Especially since I was, technically, lying about several really important things.

Like me being a star.

And Bill being released.

And the fact that I had been off my meds so long—

“I brought you guys coffee,” I stated, holding up the two mugs, effectively cutting off my own train of thought. Their eyes brightened immediately and I could feel a smirk coming on, recognising the hungry, desperate look in their eyes.

Grunkle Stan had confiscated Ford’s coffee machine down in the lab and imposed a coffee curfew on them a few weeks before, and their addiction seemed to be a touch starved under Stan’s tough regime. It came from a place of caring of course—our twins were terrible at preserving their health and hygiene while on a science bender—but neither Stan nor I could deny that it filled us with evil glee.

“Stan’s not in the house either,” I added quickly, already perceiving Ford’s quick glance at the elevator. It was almost as if he thought his twin was going to appear at any moment, in complete cahoots with me, and steal their caffeinated treat after having it dangled in front of them. With one final shake of the mugs, the nerds descended like demons clawing their way up from hell, swarming and stealing the coffees before downing them like dying men.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Ford hummed, eyes closed in pure ecstasy as he cradled his empty mug to his cheek. He still looked tired but at least he now looked happy. “You are truly a gift.”

“Best twin,” Dipper confirmed, unknowingly mimicking our Grunkle’s stance in his reverie.

“Superior.”

“Alpha twin.”

I stifled a giggle at their praise, quickly waving it off as I quietly drew the mugs from their hands and left them on an empty bench. “I think you both have been science-ing plenty for today,” I murmured, slipping between them and slipping my fingers into theirs. Dipper’s immediately tightened around mine, fitting so perfectly together that I was certain we had been conceived like that. Ford’s was gently, his larger hand curling protectively around mine as he used his thumb to brush over my knuckles soothingly.

“A power nap does sound good,” Dipper yawned before stilling, looking over his shoulder in dismay at the covered equipment. His eyes sought out Ford’s and I could almost hear the turning of the cogs in their minds before they both pulled away regretfully.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” my Grunkle said, rubbing at the back of his neck before he tried to guide me back to the elevator. “But we’ve… just hit something amazing with the star and we need to—”

“Why?” I stressed quickly, digging my feet into the floor and refusing to budge. I scowled up at Ford as he stared down at me in confusion, not quite sure what had gotten me so riled up so suddenly. “What are you even _doing_ to it?”

“Well… it’s an energy source, Mabel, sweetheart,” my Grunkle explained, laying a hand on my shoulder in an attempt to calm me. It felt as if it did the opposite, the nearby star pieces shrieking at me to escape before ‘the scary man’ tried to steal my own energy. “We’re trying to use it to make our lives better.”

“But…” I started before I forcibly stopped, unsure of how to tell him that he was hurting me without revealing what I was. Unbidden, tears began to collect at the corners of my eyes and I sniffled, floundering for a reason to explain away my sudden distress. “You guys… you _killed_ my flowers… Doesn’t that mean that those pieces were _alive?!_ ”

At the stricken look that crossed Ford’s face, I knew I’d struck a nerve. “Stan said you were quite upset about the flowers,” Ford whispered quietly, shame lacing his voice as he went to rub at his eyes. He slowly kneeled down, groaning a little as his back was stretched, but not stopping until he could look me straight in the eye. “Mabel, I promise, the star is not sentient. If it had been, its long gone after being broken up into so many pieces.”

“But, Grunkle Ford,” I tried to reason, reaching out and taking his hand, willing him to understand the things I couldn’t tell him. “ _Nothing_ produces that much energy if its dead. Please… _please_ leave the star be…”

“What has you so scared, honey?” Ford asked suddenly, eyes widening as he laid his palm against my cheek. His fingers slowly traced the watery tear tracks running down my jaw, and I could sense the love in his actions. “…Has something happened?”

“Mabel?” Dipper asked quietly, slowly coming forward to kneel at my side. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and drew me in tight. “Is it… because I haven’t seen you a while? Are you having a low time?” His eyes furrowed briefly before he looked at me once more in alarm. “Have you been taking your meds?”

“Stan just got me back on them,” I whispered back, that yucky feeling in my stomach again. Ford and Dipper both immediately sucked in sighs of relief and worry, happy that they could explain my odd behaviour as mood swings but upset that I had gone off of them in the first place.

“You know that’s not good for you, sweetheart,” Ford soothed gently, slowly getting to his feet and drawing me into an embrace. Before I could protest, the older man had hefted me into his arms and begun heading to the lift, Dipper barely a step behind. “Come on… let’s go upstairs and watch a move, okay? I’m sorry we haven’t been around, it won’t happen again.”

And, as the elevator door closed, I found my eyes catching on the covered equipment once more, relieved that there would be no more pain or experiments tonight. The problem would be back the following day and I knew I couldn’t use the excuse of my mental health forever. But, with Grunkle Ford holding me so tightly, I found myself slowly begin to relax, curling into his hold as he settled us onto the couch and Dipper flipped the channel to some nerd documentary. I didn’t mind at all, instead resting my head against my Grunkle chest and letting myself relax, the lull of Ford’s heart slowly pulling me into a safe sleep.

For I knew, when all of this was done and I was whole again…

I wouldn’t be able to feel Ford’s hugs from the sky.

And it scared me.

 


	9. Completion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel couldn't hide it forever.
> 
> She just wished that this wasn't how it ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter just kind of happened. Hopefully yall like it! I even tried to draw a picture!
> 
> Probably should put some warnings in for:  
> -Lots of yelling  
> -Violent actions that don't cause damage (but the threat is there)  
> -Really, this chapter just gets a bit dark

The easy peace that had settled over the shack had to break eventually.

There was a rhythm to how everything worked—Stan and Soos would spend the days running tours and taking care of the shack while the nerds continued their research on the star. With both parties out of the way, it was becoming easier to slip away into the woods under the guise of searching for more flowers. Most days, however, I spent the hours trying to hone the energy that coursed through my veins like secondary blood. Other times, I found somewhere far enough to not be heard when the drain of the experiments on my other form tore screams from the pits of my lungs.

I’d spotted Bill in passing a few times during the week that followed the first experiment. It was only after the second time that I spotted him, lingering just out of sight near the remains of his stone body, that I finally found the strength to warn him that I wouldn’t let myself become complete. He’d laughed at the declaration, only hints of his normal spite mixed in with it, before he asked about the daily pain I was going through.

“It’s going to drive you crazy,” he’d cautioned, infuriating in his surety over the situation. “You’re not the first star that the multiverse has delivered into the hands of greedy mortals.”

It had been the only words he’d said before disappearing once more, ignoring my calls to answer my questions. It should have worried me how accustomed I was becoming to the demon’s presence, after all, his name had used to send me into panicked sweats. Despite it all, I found my temper growing with every painful interval when my energy was forcefully stolen from me. Bill began to play on that, appealing to the upset that it caused like the manipulative asshole that he was.

I knew it was a trick.

But it still didn’t stop the rising fury inside of me.

It all came to a head, one night, when Ford and Dipper had finally been pried from their lab to join Stan and I for dinner. A headache was pounding just behind my eyes and it was making me miserable—the experiments today had left all of my pieces dazed with the intensity of it all. I didn’t know what the two geniuses were doing with my stolen power but I knew the amount they had was beginning to become ridiculous.

“It really is amazing!” Dipper had exclaimed, face still lit with excitement as he shovelled food into his mouth. “There’s _so much_ power in this thing! The possibilities are endless! Heck, maybe we can use it to create greener energy! Or fuel transportation into space, starting new colonies on other planets—”

“Stop,” I groaned, rubbing at my temples. Normally, I could play along with his science talk, maybe even offer up some gentle teasing, but the headache just seemed to be getting worse at his words. “Please, can’t we talk about something else for once?”

“Yeah, it’s all you two have been talking about for _weeks,_ ” Stan groaned in solidarity, prying a small, tired smile from me. “Can’t we just have a normal meal for once?”

“You can’t begrudge our nephew from being excited, Stanley,” Ford shot back, frowning at his twin. “This is truly world-changing research we are doing! Just because you don’t understand it—”

“In case you’ve forgotten, poindexter,” Stan snapped, gaze turning a shade cooler as he frowned right back. “We have a nephew _and_ a niece who has very nicely asked you both to stop.”

Ford’s eyes briefly found mine and, though I wanted to maintain the eye contact to try to get him to see just how tired I was with everything going on, I dropped my gaze, knowing he couldn’t understand without me telling him.

Which, I couldn’t.

_Of course._

“I’m not _disregarding_ Mabel,” Ford shot back, gaze narrowing. At the hostile look beginning to slink across his features, I knew this was going to dissolve into one of their uglier arguments.

“Guys—” I tried to say, to interject before it got worse, but it was ignored by both men.

“If you aren’t, then why are you ignoring her request for you to stop talking about the stupid star?!”

“You don’t have to act so offended for her! You’re not even giving me a chance to—”

“Great,” Dipper grumbled beside me, sinking further into his seat as our Grunkles continued to bicker. His eyes slowly sought out mine but, instead of the amused resignation I normally saw in them when our Grunkles fought, they were tired and even a bit annoyed. “All I wanted was to be excited about this, Mabel. Couldn’t you just let me have this?”

Whatever words I had wanted to say caught in my throat, genuinely shocked with the attitude my twin was regarding me with. Logically, I _knew_ that the lack of sleep and a proper meal was beginning to make him more antsy, but the thudding pain inside of my skull cried out foul play.

I knew I wasn’t a perfect sister—heck, if the unicorn and Bill were to be believed, I was downright abysmal—but I was trying my best. I was _letting_ myself remain incomplete, remain in constant pain so I could keep them safe and allow them to continue experimenting on me. I didn’t make a fuss anymore, I didn’t tease him about his love of role-play games or _anything_ that made him uncomfortable. I didn’t wake him up in the middle of the night when I had nightmares but was there the second he had them. I didn’t embarrass him anymore; heck, I didn’t even _cling_ like I used to!

“Why?” I asked lowly, the words coming out like oozing venom as I glared between him and Ford. “You couldn’t _‘let me’_ have my flowers, could you?”

At my words, a terrifying silence enveloped the table. I felt Stan and Ford’s shocked gazes on my face but I didn’t dare look at them, keeping my eyes fixed unwaveringly on my brother who was beginning to look more and more upset and angry.

“Not everything is about you,” he snapped back and that was the final straw.

“ _My Star, you need to control your—_ ”

I began to laugh, the sound high and angry, bordering on hysterical. “Oh, I _know_ that!” I yelled, feeling the pressure behind my eyes increase as I glared back at obnoxious, oblivious Dipper. “I _know_ that because when I finally find something that I love, some kind of science that me and Grunkle Ford can bond over, what do you do? You both _destroy_ something that _I_ found, something that _I_ loved, something that _I_ showed _you,_ because _you_ wanted to study it!” Dipper’s jaw fell open, utterly speechless, but I wasn’t done yet—the pressure had been building for far too long. “I know it’s not _meant_ to be about me but just for once can’t _I_ be allowed to be the smart one?!” My eyes began to burn and I shot my glare over to Ford’s quickly paling face, needing them both to understand the things I couldn’t tell them. “You didn’t even _ask_ if I wanted to join in on studying _my_ star.”

I was breathing heavily, feeling the rage crawling beneath my skin like a thousand spiders. I could feel the tenseness of all of my shards, feel the worry boiling in their crystalline pieces. I tried to take deep, calming breaths, letting the peace try and sink into the pieces to let them know that everything was okay, but, without warning, alarm went racing through our collective consciousness. Ford, Dipper and Stan were all staring at the pendant around my neck.

And it was glowing.

I yelped before I could help it, fingers scrabbling to cover the molten gold glow that surrounded the metal but it was no use. It shone from between my fingers and, when I tried to hide it beneath my sweater, the smell of burning yarn filled the air.

“Mabel…?” Grunkle Stan asked quietly, his eyes wide and even a little worried. I could almost see him piecing it together, remembering the fragment he had given me without our brothers knowing, and he was beginning to realise that the star was more active than he’d originally believed.

“Is that…?” Dipper rasped, leaping to his feet and staring at me with a mix of horror and disbelief. I knew he recognised the glow, knew it like I knew every fear that had ever raced through his mind, and I knew I was about to be in some real shit.

“You had it?” Ford asked, voice cutting through everyone else’s. His eyes were wide, filled with hurt and betrayal as his eyes slowly drifted up from my pendant to my guilt-ridden face. “You took the last piece that we needed, Mabel?”

“I _gave_ it to her,” Stan quickly cut in, suddenly panicked at the idea of me having to face their dual criticism alone. “You left it on the table weeks back! And it was hers to begin with—”

Ford whirled on him, slamming a six-fingered fist onto the table. “Don’t _push me,_ Staley!” he yelled, eyes like liquid fire as he glared his brother into submission. It was rare that Ford got heated. I genuinely didn’t think he had been this angry since he had stepped out of the portal three years ago and struck Stan. I wondered if he was going to try to hit him again.

Or me.

The thought came unbidden and was so shocking that the last of my anger shrivelled up, the glow following a second behind it. Ford’s vehement stare suddenly locked back onto me, his sharp, calculating eyes taking note of everything that was occurring and filing it away for future rumination.

“You’ve lied to me and betrayed my trust, Mabel,” he said evenly, not an ounce of his usual warmth in his voice. He held a tense, still hand across the table, fingers beckoning me to hand over the shard around my neck. “I don’t know how you haven’t hurt yourself with that piece but you will give it to me now.”

“But—”

“ _Now!_ ” he yelled, hand still rigidly set out before me, daring me to disobey him.

This wasn’t the Ford I knew or was used to, this was someone angry and hurt by the actions of their family. I could sense the change in Stan too, why he was suddenly so shell-shocked and silent while his brother tried to tear the shard from me. He was back in his house on Glass Shard Beach, being thrown out by his father and ignored by his hurt twin. My eyes sought out Dipper’s and that same fury was etched into his face too, reflecting our Grunkle’s in such terrible sync that a chill raced down my spine.

“No.”

The words came out quiet, the fear of potentially losing members of my family subduing me. I knew I couldn’t give them the shard. If they had it, the star would be complete and Bill would be unopposed. I wouldn’t be able to help, I couldn’t protect my family who were already so broken—

“ _My Star, you have to tell them! Don’t let them take me from you!_ ”

But, if I told them, they’d know what I was. They’d know how dangerous I was, how inhuman. What if they wanted to study me too? What if they tried to separate me from my crystallised form?

What if they didn’t believe me?

Before I could even think about explaining things to them, to even suck in a breath, Dipper snatched the locket and tugged it hard, the thick chain snapping against my neck. I winced, already feeling the bruise that was going to be forming there later as I stared at my brother, my hurt going ignored when Dipper yelped and dropped it onto the floor. As he rushed to run his hand under the kitchen faucet, I caught a glimpse of the circular burn turning his palm crimson.

It made me disgustingly pleased.

I leapt to grab the pendant, to get it as far from my Grunkle and brother as I could, but Ford was faster. He slammed his foot down in front of it, blocking my grasping fingers before reaching for it himself. I should have been scared, after all, his boot had come so close to breaking my fingers, but all I could feel was a self-righteous fury at his actions.

“Grunkle Ford, stop it!” I snapped, glaring up at him. I tried to reach past him but he slapped my hands away, the snap of his leather gloves against my knuckles making me yelp. “You don’t understand! Ford, you can’t complete the star!”

“What would _you_ know about it?” he growled, holding my pendant up and out of my reach as he glared down at me. The insecure part of me withered under the stare, knowing that I wasn’t as smart as my brother and that, really, of course they thought I was being an arrogant, ignorant child. And that realisation _hurt._

“Give it back!”

“Go to your room, Mabel!”

“But—”

“ _Go to_ _your room, Mabel!_ ” he roared, finally at the end of his tether. Even Dipper looked mildly scared while it seemed to snap Stan out of his slump. He quickly got to his feet and grabbed me, shooting a scathing look at his twin before he tried to carry me towards the attic. I knew he was trying to give us time apart, for both parties to cool their tempers, but the second Stan had grabbed me, Ford had steered Dipper towards the vending machine.

“ _No!_ ” I screamed, struggling against Stan’s grasp. He grunted in surprise, tightening his hold on me as he tried his best to get us both out of the room before things got worse. “No, Grunkle Stan, you don’t understand! They can’t take my shard!”

“It’s okay, pumpkin, it’s okay,” he soothed as comfortingly as he could which, due to him being frazzled and panicked, wasn’t much. I began thinking about using my powers, letting the edges of my heat leak to try and get away but then the memory of the Siren burnt into the forest floor flashed through my mind. My body immediately went cold and all of the fight drained out of me, realising that, no matter what, I’d end up hurting my family to protect them from Bill.

Bill.

_Bill!_

“Ford, Bill is back!” I screamed as Stan tried to ascend the stairs. Both elder twins stumbled to a dead stop, bodies locking up and going terrifyingly still. “You can’t complete the star!” I tried to reason, yelling over Stan’s shoulder at my other Grunkle who refused to look at me. “If you complete the star, he is going to be able to attack unopposed! You _have_ to trust me!”

Silence reigned for several terrifying seconds as Stan’s hands went slack, allowing me to slip from his grasp onto the bottom of the stairs. My legs were shaking, my body feeling nauseous and unsteady as I was forced to admit one of the secrets I had so desperately been keeping for their sanity.

“Bill is dead,” came Ford’s cold, quiet reply, his shoulders hunched and his whole back screaming tension. Dipper was staring at me from behind our Grunkle, his jaw slack and face pale. Ford slowly looked over his shoulder and I sucked in a breath, not seeing a hint of warmth in his apathetic gaze. When he focused on me, it was almost as if he didn’t know me—like I was a complete stranger. “And I _don’t_ trust you.”

And then he slammed the vending machine behind him.

The sting of his words, the incredulity of his lack of trust and the burning feeling of his apathetic glare seemed to short-circuit my thoughts. Nothing was making sense and my legs were threatening to give out from beneath me. Stan resting his hand on my shoulder was the only thing keeping me grounded and I surged forward, trying to yank the vending machine open but to no avail.

It was locked down.

“No!” I yelled from between gritted teeth, my breath coming fast as I slammed my fist into the metal.

“…Mabel—”

“They _can’t!_ ” I stressed, turning desperate eyes onto my Grunkle before squeezing them shut. I tried to see through the rest of my pieces, needing to know that it wasn’t too late—

They’d just gotten to the basement.

“There has to be another way in!” I ran back to Stan, grasping his hand tighter than I meant to but releasing it immediately at his pained gasp.

“Your skin—” he tried to say, trying so hard to focus on one problem at a time as he stared at me. “You’re burning up, Mabel!”

“ _I know!_ ” I cried, grasping at the roots of my hair and pulling. The edges of my vision were going black in my panic but my pieces were doing everything they could to keep me grounded. Stan tried to move forward, hands extended to try and help, but I pulled away, knowing that, in this state, he could get hurt. “Grunkle Stan, _help me!_ ”

“…I can’t,” he whispered brokenly, staring at me as if he had just failed as my Grunkle. He looked absolutely stricken, wrinkled face gaunt and pale as he stared down at his shaking hands. “Mabel, sweetie… you gotta stop.”

“ _No!_ ” I tried to argue, throwing my weight against the vending machine. It didn’t move an inch. “Why can’t you guys just _listen—_ ” Ford had just pulled my shard from its pendant, angrily storming towards the cannister with my incomplete star. “I’m not ready yet!”

“Ready for w _hat,_ Mabel?” Stan asked imploringly, desperately trying to understand and calm me. “Talk to me, Pumpkin. Please.”

“ _I’m not ready to be a star!_ ” I screamed, eyes burning as I felt my limbs begin to glow. Ford was holding the shard in a pair of tweezers, drawing it closer and closer to the rest of my pieces—

“…What?”

I turned my watery gaze onto Stan’s confused face, his eyes darting over the orange glow emanating from beneath my skin. He seemed to register my words a beat later, his eyes clouding in distress.

“Mabel, what do you mean you’re ‘not ready to be a star’?” He took another step forward and I shrank against the vending machine, wishing that I could disappear from his scrutiny. “Is this why you’re so desperate for the star piece? Something to do with…” His hands gestured vaguely in my direction and I knew he was referring to the light pouring from me.

“Grunkle Stan,” I whispered, sniffling as the tears ran down my cheeks. My eyes scanned over his face, willing myself to commit every detail to memory. I had no clue what was about to happen, feeling my heart thudding against my rib cage as Ford slowly laid the shard over the concave it belonged in. “I love you and I’m so, so sorry.”

And then I felt my last piece slot into place.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I tried to think really hard how Dipper and Ford would end up getting the last piece. I know Bill is smart/cunning enough to not show up before the Pines until they'd completed the star, else they'd know to never complete it. And, quite honestly, I think Mabel needed a huge vent. So this just kind of came out.
> 
> Also I tried to think through how this chapter ended and reasons why, despite her incredible power, she wouldn't be able to steal the shard back before it was used to complete the star:  
> 1\. At the beginning, she is still genuinely terrified of anyone knowing she killed a creature so horrifically (even though NONE OF US blame her for it)  
> 2\. Things were already so heated during the argument that to suddenly declare "I AM THE STAR" probably would have just fallen on deaf ears. Or, at the very least, no-one would believe her.  
> 3\. She COULD have burnt them or let out her heat or even her light, just to prove what she was, but with her emotions going wild, she could very well have accidentally hurt her Grunkles or her brother by accident (which is what she is trying to avoid)  
> 4\. Lastly, I think anyone being under so much pressure and who was as scared as she was during this argument wouldn't be able to think straight either. By the time she mentions that Bill is back, Ford is already closed off completely and back to his 'trust no-one' mentality. Which, haha, parallels again amirite?
> 
> P.s. anyone else notice Mabel stopped calling Ford 'Grunkle' by the end of the chapter? I LIVE FOR THE ANGST
> 
> Stay tuned for Bill's entrance next chapter!


	10. You Didn't Trust Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel is complete.
> 
> Now Bill has come to set her free.

Words could not begin to describe how completion felt.

Before, when dozens of voices had tried to demand attention only to be silenced by the one that was draped around my neck, it had been barely contained chaos. Now, it was like every thought was a grain of sand pouring through a perfectly curved hourglass. The voices, the feelings, everything—they all flowed together like a single consciousness.

My consciousness.

Now, my eyes couldn’t see anything, unable to glimpse the world past the white light that emanated from every patch of skin on my body. Stan was somewhere past that brilliant white light of my flesh body, while Dipper and Ford were backed against the wall of the basement, hands held high to shield against the brilliance of my crystal form. I wanted to revel in this feeling, in the warmth that coursed through my body like a second set of veins, like a permanent summer time. But when Stan’s gasp of alarm finally reached my ears, I knew I couldn’t enjoy this feeling.

Not at the cost.

Slowly, I began to draw the light back into my body, my newfound control over my powers feeling like a birthright I had denied myself of for too long. As it finally faded, I could see Stan’s frightened face, his eyes heavy with tears sluggishly dribbling down his cheeks. I yearned to embrace his crumpled form, to reassure him that everything would be okay, but even I wasn’t certain of that yet.

“Mm… Mabel…?” he whispered, hands shaking as he hesitantly crawled forward a few feet. “What… was that? Are you okay, sweetie?”

“I’m…” I began before stopping, unsure of how to answer. I raised a hand, laying it against my cheek where it came away wet. I giggled, the sound coming out half choked as I grinned through my frightened yet relieved tears. “I’m whole.”

“…Whole?”

“Stan!”

The vending machine slammed open, Ford’s breathing erratic as he stumbled into the gift shop. The old scientist’s eyes were manic, the pupils dilated and darting around wildly. He didn’t bother to even regard me as he grabbed his brother’s arm, trying to pull him towards the open elevator shaft.

“You _have_ to see this!” he exclaimed, his chaotic energy far overpowering Stan’s current defenceless state. I opened my mouth, about to ask what was going on, before Ford’s eyes narrowed at me and filled once more with liquid fire. “And _you,_ ” he growled, pulling the gate closed on the elevator before turning the machine on. “Don’t say a _word._ ”

As the elevator descended and the vending machine swung closed, I felt the order like a physical muzzle around my jaw. My tongue was thick in my mouth and the only sound I could create was a garbled noise, no words being able to manifest. With the sudden muteness came the realisation of Bill’s words, that the only time I could interfere in the mortal world would be if someone possessed my star. Which, if I was right, meant that Ford’s current orders were absolute.

Not that I could tell him that since I couldn’t _say a word!_

Just as the silence in the shack began to become overpowering, a flash of blue fire in the corner of my eye drew my attention. Bill sat on a nearby shelf, looking like one of the ridiculous souvenirs that my Grunkle sold to pay the bills.

“So,” he commented drily, rolling his singular eye in almost fond exasperation. “Pines, am I right?”

I scowled back at him, trying to ignore the nagging anger that was nipping at the back of my skull. He was right, I was filled with far too many emotions to really understand right then, but they all seemed to be summed up by the mere inflection of my family’s surname.

“Sixer got your tongue?” he giggled, beginning to look far too gleeful for my liking. I reached down to take off one of my shoes and throw it at him, completely missing and knocking a snow globe off of its vigilant perch. The glass broke upon impact with the wooden floorboards and I balked, knowing that Stan would not be happy with me. “You’re no fun. Want me to set you free?”

I looked up at him sharply, narrowing my eyes at him as I waited for him to break into laughter. When all I got was a serious and expectant look, I glanced around for some paper and a pen. With a snap of his fingers, they appeared in his grasp, almost as if he had known I was thinking about them.

He probably had.

 _‘If you free me, that means you have the star.’_ I shot him as disbelieving of a look as I possibly could, arching my brow as I continued to write. ‘ _And then I’m just under your control. No deal, Dorito._’

“You wound me, Shooting Star,” he laughed, slapping his knee in pure glee as he floated closer. I was tempted to back up but I didn’t want him to think he was intimidating me. “No deals, no nothing. The only thing I want is for your star to be out of _their_ hands. And, if I’m not wrong, you never got the chance to tell either of the old flesh bags everything.”

‘ _I can just write it out to them,_ ’ I answered immediately, scribbling furiously at his accusations. He barely even glanced at the paper before he let out the most pitying sigh I had ever heard.

“I don’t think he wants to talk to you, Star,” he murmured, almost looking… sad at his admission. I swung my head round to stare at him for a few long, tense seconds before I felt the fight begin to drain from my spirit. He was right, of course. Ford looked… well…

He looked like he wished I’d never existed.

“You’re more like me now than them,” he continued not unkindly as he dared to come a bit closer. He was within arms’ distance now but I didn’t make a move to strike him, too caught up in the implications of his words. It wasn’t like I could physically argue with him anyway. “All I want is to take the star from them and bring it to my realm,” he continued, keeping his tone as level as it could be with him being the embodiment of pure chaos. “Then, you can have it back. You won’t have to take orders from anyone or anything, you’ll be free to return to the sky, if you would like. Or even watch the show that’s gonna happen here on earth!”

I frowned at his last comment, trying to convey as much displeasure as I could. If he picked up on it, which I _knew_ he did, he chose to ignore it.

“Look, Star kid,” he continued, clicking his fingers and letting his cane materialise. “I’m just coming to warn ya about what’s gonna go down. Until you get that star back, you’re all but a servant to whoever possesses it. Now, are we going to do this willingly or are you going to be a brat?”

I bared my teeth back at him, a gargled growl emanating from low in my throat. I wished I could cuss the demon out but, judging by the amused expression curving his eye, I knew he had a pretty good idea of what I was thinking.

“Always so fun,” he gleefully laughed to himself before he tipped his hat. The elevator door clanged open and I sucked in a startled breath, not having heard it begin its ascent. “Well, looks like the fun is about to start!”

I swung around, my face falling when I saw Dipper standing in the elevator doorway. His brows had been drawn into a dangerous expression, anger palpable in his movements before he raised his gaze—

And spotted Bill.

A terrible silence fell over the three of us as Dipper stared at the yellow triangle before him, first in confusion before his expression began to twist into unbridled horror. With a frightened scream, he clambered back into the elevator which took him back down to the lab, in a hurry to warn both of our Grunkles below.

He'd left me behind.

Logically, I knew that his terror had blinded him—

_Why did I always have to be the one who thought logically?_

Bill cackled in the background at scaring my brother but I was too stuck in my own thoughts to pay much attention, sick of being the one who had to look past the scathing comments and bad attitudes everyone in this house seemed to have from time to time. It was almost as if, now that I was whole, I was starting to see things less as Mabel Pines, the perpetual peace keeper of the family, whose only focus was what was going wrong in the present and how it made her feel.

And more like a being above it all.

“Come on, I’m heading down to the basement! Meet you there!” Bill whooped, phasing through the floorboards. I quickly pulled myself to my feet and leapt towards the vending machine, calling the elevator up as impatiently as I could. Soon, it was pulling me down to the basement and, even over the whirring of the machinery, I could hear the shouting coming from my Grunkles.

I wasn’t at all surprised when the door to the basement opened only for Ford to be aiming a futuristic bazooka at the triangle.

“ _You!_ ” he hissed angrily, firing the gun a few times only to growl when Bill just floated out of the way. “You’re meant to be _dead!_ ”

“Hey, someone _did_ try to warn you, Sixer,” he answered plainly, shrugging his shoulders as he went to lean against the cannister containing my star. Ford tensed up immediately and went to fire another round, but Dipper was quick to remind him not to fire at the precious stone. “And what did you do? Took her shard, ordered her not to speak… pretty bad etiquette. Thought I taught you better than that!”

“Mabel knew,” Stan huffed, still looking like he might pass out at any second. He and Dipper were situated behind Ford, likely under the genius’ own direction so that he could protect them.

“What does her shard have to do with _this?!_ ” Dipper snapped, trying to stand at Ford’s side only to be pushed back. The older man seemed adamant about not putting his nephew in danger.

Lucky him.

“Come on, you remember what stars were used for in Dimension E493!”

At this, Ford’s face scrunched up in confusion before it cleared, a shadow passing over his features as he reloaded the bazooka. “This star is dead,” he answered evenly, forcing past whatever feelings he was receiving from remembering his life outside of this universe.

“Oh please, nothing dead produces this much power,” the dream demon snickered, whacking the cannister with his cane. Ford let out a furious yell and dove to catch it but was a fraction of a second too late. It toppled off the bench and smashed on the ground.

Leaving my perfect star sitting among the glass.

Seeing it in person for the first time, outside of my own mind and its glass container, sucked the air from my lungs. It truly was beautiful—beautiful enough that I wanted to carry it with me forever and never let it leave my sight.

“You’re as bad as those black-market dealers, Fordsy,” he continued, clicking his fingers and covering the crystal in a layer of blue fire.

I gasped, expecting to feel the fire consuming me, but it was replaced instead with a feeling of intense calm. Ford swung around to stare at me, face a mix between reminiscent anger from my earlier defiance and intense relief that Bill had not gotten to me first.

“Now, Shooting Star,” Bill called, lifting the star to hover above one of his hands. It began to shine beneath the fire, very slowly taking on an azure tint. “You have permission to speak again.”

The invisible muzzle around my mouth fizzled away and I immediately snapped at Ford, both annoyed at his arrogance and utterly sick of the entire situation. “The one thing, the _one thing,_ I told you was that he was back and _you didn’t listen!_ ”

“Well, you already have a track record of lying,” he spat back before ignoring me completely, returning his attention to Bill. His eyes suddenly narrowed, re-analysing his words before he realised what was so troubling about them. “Why are you giving her orders?”

“Oh! Well, I control her star, see?” Bill cackled, twirling the crystal on the tip of his finger before passing it from hand to hand. “Control the star, control the being, you get?” At the blank stares he got back he let out an over-dramatic sigh, pretending he wasn’t enjoying every second of their ignorance. “So dense, Pines! Shooting Star is—”

“Shut your _fucking mouth!_ ” I yelled, cutting him off before he could say it. My Grunkles turned to look at me in surprise, having never heard me cuss aloud before. “Or I’ll shut it for you!”

“So cute for a tiger with clipped talons,” he snipped back, tapping the side of the crystal and making my head hurt. “This Star _is_ your Shooting Star, dipshits. She was just missing all of her precious pieces. Show them, Star.”

At his order, I felt the control I had over my own body begin to slip. It disgusted me, sending cold shivers down my spine as I raised a hand and let it light on fire, the white flames licking up my palm greedily without leaving a mark. I felt angry tears begin to trace my cheek bones, the liquid black but lit up like the night sky, full of shining stars.

All of the anger seemed to have been wrung from Ford, leaving him looking pale and so very, very sick. His eyes were huge, elongated by the white light washing out his imperfections and leaving nothing behind but a man struggling to understand. Stan was no better, clutching at my equally as frazzled twin brother like he might fall apart if he let go.

“I asked you to _trust me,_ ” I whispered, feeling my throat begin to close as the tears increased. My bottom lip quivered, trying to keep up the anger inside of me before, like everything else, it just drained away. “…But, of course, you never do, do you?”

As I allowed my hand to drop, I let the flames flicker out, feeling the heat recede beneath my skin once more. Ford’s eyes watched the move, completely transfixed before he forced his stricken gaze to the black, iridescent tears tracing the outline of my face.

“Mabel, what’s going on? I don’t… I don’t understand,” he said carefully, trying to take a tentative step forward. He halted when I immediately cringed back, remembering the look in his eyes when he ordered me to be silent.

“I was trying to keep you guys safe,” I stressed, clenching my fists so tightly that my knuckles were beginning to turn white. I could feel the edge of my glow wanting to be released, to express my displeasure of the situation, but I kept it firmly clamped down. “I was still learning what I was when I broke Bill’s statue—”

“What you a _re?!_ ” Ford repeated incredulously at the same time that Dipper yelled:

“ _You_ released him?!”

“For the zodiac to be completed—” I snapped, daring either of them to interrupt me again with the coldest glare I could manage. “There needed to be a star in human form! So it had to be broken apart into different parts and… and…”

“Is that what you meant…?” Stan asked quietly, shuffling forward and looking every bit as old and broken as he did when his mind had been erased. “When you said you were a star? Sweetheart?”

“I’m the Shooting Star, Grunkle Stan,” I giggled wetly, unable to stop the sob that began to bubble up from my chest. “When I found that flower, when I kept that shard… they told me what I was. They were waiting for me so we could be whole again.”

“Mabel, stop it,” Dipper tried to snap but his voice broke, the stricken expression on his face betraying the fear that was beginning to seep into his bones. He moved forward and I retreated back, unable to help the pull of the star as it brought me to Bill’s side. “None of this makes sense! You can’t be a _literal_ star! Do you know how preposterous it sounds?!”

“Oh, you want proof then?” Bill asked cheekily, his metaphorical grin palpable in his words as he turned to me.

“Bill, don’t,” I called, the defeat in my voice audible even to me. “Please.”

“I can’t say no to that face,” he cooed, coming closer to pinch my cheek. I bore it with an uncomfortable shudder, remembering the feeling of his hand holding Dipper and I up with his eye flashing between our symbols—

_Stop._

“She can’t disobey me while I have her crystal body,” the triangle continued, backing off when he didn’t get the reaction he wanted from me. “Which, really, was you guys’ first mistake. I mean, she tried to warn you! ‘Bill’s back’ and all that. Didn’t even bother to think, ‘wow, this kid is so upset, maybe we should hear her out’! Always cared more about science than your own family, huh, Sixer?”

I saw the flinch race through Ford but couldn’t seem to feel much sympathy for him, my chest tightening as I watched the blue tinge infecting my star. “Bill,” I said, voice low as I yearned to hold the crystal to my chest. “Please, I need my star.”

“When we get home,” he answered smoothly, clicking his fingers once. It was deathly silent for a moment before there was the terrible sound of groaning metal screeching through the space. Behind us, we could see the phantom shapes of a portal long-torn down begin to reconstruct itself, lights flickering eerily to life and beckoning us over.

I could sense Ford’s fear, saw the way he surged back like he had just been electrocuted at the sight of the amalgamation of his portal. I knew it was just an apparition, a nightmare from years before, but I also knew its significance.

Bill had never been banished back to the nightmare realm.

“Time to go, Shooting Star! Say goodbye to the Pines if you want, you might never want to see them again once you see how wonderful the sky is!”

When Bill floated towards the portal, I found myself following, fully intending to follow my star wherever it went. It didn’t even cross my mind that I was shunning my family in the process, my focus was completely on my star, on the crystal that I needed like a second heart in my chest.

“ _Mabel,_ where are you _going?!_ ” Stan yelled, surging forward before either of our brothers could react. He wrapped a shaky hand around my elbow and tugged me back, frightened eyes still darting over to Bill’s impatient frown but ultimately trying to focus on me. “What are you doing?! You can’t just go with Bill!”

“I have to,” I answered plainly, blinking up at him in confusion. The longer I was complete, the more things began to become muddled in my head—I couldn’t quite remember why I had kept my pieces separated for so long anymore. “He has my star, I have to follow it.”

“You’re not a star, sweetie, please, you gotta believe us,” Stan begged, gripping both of my shoulders in his hands. He was definitely trembling now, his whole body rattling at the panic coursing through his veins. I gently tried to pull back but frowned when his grip held, looking up at him in growing annoyance. That a mortal would dare try to stop me from going after my body was ludicrous and I felt a surge of heat begin to ebb at the surface of my skin, warning the man to back off lest he got burned.

“I need to go home.”

“You _are_ home!” he yelled desperately, pulling my unresisting body into a tight, desperate embrace. I felt tears wet the crown of my head where he had buried his face, a tinge of regret filling my chest. This human seemed to be genuine in his sorrow.

“You seem to care an awful lot,” I murmured, feeling my own arms raised to drag my fingers against the soft cotton of the man’s suit jacket. Did I know him? Everything was starting to get a little hazy.

“Can’t get rid of your Grunkle Stan,” he huffed wetly.

A spark of recognition flashed through me and I blinked, remembering the human part of myself once more. I held my Grunkle back as hard as I could before slowly pulling myself out of his embrace. He looked heart broken at the action but there was nothing else I could do.

I had to follow my star.

“Goodbye, Grunkle Stan,” I whispered before trying to turn away, the phantom glow of the portal catching my eyes.

“ _Mabel!_ ” Dipper shrieked behind me, his voice cracking like it used to when we were both 12 and he was especially frightened. “Bill is just tricking you! What the hell do you think you are—”

“I’m not needed anymore, Dipper,” I answered quietly, feeling the truth of the words as they ran gently off of my tongue. I tossed him a tired look, shooting a quick glance at Ford who looked equally as frightened and angry. I held my arms out, practically embracing the air as I gestured to myself. “You both have made that abundantly clear. You don’t trust me, you don’t need me…” I locked eyes with Ford once more, hoping he could see how badly he had hurt me when he told me he didn’t trust me. “You don’t even _want_ me.”

Over the sound of my family screaming at me, a combination of Stan begging me to come back while Dipper shouted all of his frustrations and fears, I slowly found my hand taking Bill’s tiny one. He smirked down at me once before floating through the portal, pulling me with him into the nightmare realm. The last thing I saw before the blue light burned its way into my retinas and effectively blinded me for the journey, was Ford’s frightened face, his hand held out towards me like he was trying to grab me back—

And then I was gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so many feels about Mabel that it's hard to express it all in this piece.  
> Don't get me wrong, I know Ford loves Mabel, but they got so LITTLE interaction during the series and it makes me so mad that, for a while, he just saw her as a young Stanley.
> 
> Like... look, I love Ford so much and right now I'm kinda bashing him and Dipper a lot but there's a point to it, I promise. I think that Ford mellowed out a whole heap over the years since Weirdmageddon but I also believe that, when it comes to the mention of Bill or when he is very tired, he begins to fall back into his "trust no one" mentality. And Dipper... well, I see him as very protective of his sister up until he is too distracted by his work with Ford.
> 
> Mabel I've always envisioned as the peacekeeper of the Shack: she doesn't get easily offended and can work through things logically if someone snaps at her, especially since she is still super conscious of her so-called 'impurities' and tendencies to be 'a selfish sister' (which is BS). I wanted her to finally get tired of having to see things logically, of having to take the brunt of everyone else's emotional train wrecks. 
> 
> And I want Ford and Dipper to see her as the star she is, even if that means they have to lose her.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, I'm not as happy with the picture for this chapter but I also really wanted to hurry up and post the chapter so I swallowed my pride. It gives you some of the vibes im going for at least.
> 
> Things to look forward to next chapter: Star Mabel chapter/picture of what she is going to look like. Plus... i don't know haha, I'm still writing it!


	11. Dealing(s) With the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill is a pain in the neck.
> 
> Unfortunately, he's Mabel's pain in the neck until their newest deal is done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a filler chapter to be honest. Mostly establishes what Mabel looks like now, the deal Bill is going to make with her, how her mind perceives things now and kind of what direction the story will be going in :)  
> Hope you all enjoy it!  
> Thank you to everyone who has already added kudos or comments to this story! It always makes my day reading them!

The Nightmare Realm was a lot like how I thought it would be.

It was eerily similar to Weirdmageddon but grey scale, the only colours existing being the bright hues of the demons who occupied it as well as… what looked to be their victims.  Bill had laughed, his familiar cackle falling on my ears like an annoying pest. It didn’t seem to bother me anymore—years of trauma seeping away as my memories of my human family began to fade. I knew they existed, knew I had been born a mortal, but it seemed unimportant now.

Perhaps this is what it meant to be a star.  

“Home sweet home, Shooting Star!” Bill laughed, the yellow of his body shining vividly against our subdued settings. 

The landscape was mismatched and ill-put-together, almost as if a five-year-old had smashed together the pieces of several jigsaws. The base of a snowy mountain bled straight into a bustling city, the edges of each landscape cutting off abruptly as if each territory was lorded over by a separate entity with differing tastes. In the distance, I could see Bill’s Fearamid floating above what looked to be rolling seas and I found myself becoming more certain of my theory.

“For you maybe,” I muttered, allowing my eyes to dart over the nearby territories. Before I could help myself, I felt my head tip back, looking to the air above in case I might catch a glimpse of stars. It was nothing but a tangle of the black void and what looked to be other floating palaces.   

“You can reach most places in the multiverse from here,” Bill mused, watching me from the corner of his eye. He looked as if he were trying to feign disinterest, but even I could tell he was close to bursting with all of the knowledge he was lording over me. “After all, the one thing all dimensions share are nightmares.”

“Riveting,” I mumbled back, turning a cool gaze onto him. My eyes found my star, the soft pale light emitted from it being tinged baby blue at the edges, and I wondered if Bill’s influence could be extracted from it. “I would like my star back.”

“Uh-uh, not yet!” Bill whined childishly, almost as if he were annoyed that I was trying to cut his fun short. He drifted further away from me, clutching my star possessively to his chest. “You haven’t even heard any of the deals I want to make with you!”

“You never planned on giving me back my star, did you?” I wasn’t even surprised, I knew Bill would try to get as much mileage out of his current stance over me as he could. “Nor were you going to let me go to the sky.”

“Oh, trust me, you’ll get to go there!” he quickly reassured, metaphorical smirk shining through his eye. “Visit a bit, see some of the others, maybe even try to find out who you used to be. But you don’t get the star back until you agree to a few… conditions.”

“Like?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

“Like, for instance, I want you to help me in getting to your old dimension,” he answered, leaning back a little. “Without the portal, I can’t travel there freely, it’s not as open to dimension hopping as other universes. I can travel back here just fine.”

“If I refused to allow myself to be whole for so long to keep you _away_ from the mortals, why would I ever agree to that?” I asked, genuinely curious about where he got his nerve from. My memories of how I felt as a human may have been fuzzy, but I knew the old me was ready to tear Bill apart if he came near the shack.

“Well, for one? I have your star,” he chuckled, tightening his grasp ever so slightly until a headache began to press upon my temples. “If you _don’t_ agree, I just won’t give it back to you and you’ll be forced to do as I say anyway. At least this way, you have some input in the deal.”

“You’d still be contained to Gravity Falls.”

“I can work with that for now,” he said smoothly, seemingly trying to speed up the deal. He began to fidget and I realised how long he had been gone from the nightmare realm—he was probably keen to prowl his old stomping grounds.

“You can’t hurt any of the humans,” I countered, raising a brow at the stricken look that flashed across his features.

“What about a bit of mauling?”

“No.”

“Torture?”

“ _No._ ”

“Psychological warfare?” he countered, narrowing his gaze in annoyance. I didn’t see why he wanted my cooperation exactly, he could have just ordered me to obey him, and yet I wasn’t passing up this opportunity to set some boundaries.

“You’re a dream demon,” I laughed, crossing my arms as I gazed up at him. “Keep it to people’s dreamscapes and I could agree to that.”

“I’m sure you want to set down some ground rules for your sweet, sweet Pines,” he grumbled next. “So, go on! Spit ‘em out!”

“As long as you don’t hurt them, like anyone else in the town, I have no qualms, Bill Cipher.”

At my words, Bill’s eye snapped wide open, surprise flitting across his face. I was sure in that moment that if he had a mouth, his jaw would be hitting the floor. “You’re bluffing,” he argued, trying to school his expression. “I thought they would be your top priority. ‘Don’t touch my Grunkles’ and all that, no?”

I shook my head, the part of me that was still human feeling the burn of betrayal sitting low in my stomach. I wondered if that part of myself could ever forgive Ford or Dipper for what they had done. “They made their choice,” I whispered. “Now they have to deal with it.”

“You surprise me every moment, Shooting Star,” Bill mused, making a contemplative sound before continuing. “Alright, so no causing any human harm is your only condition? In exchange for opening portals to your home dimension and for your star?”

“I assume that, while you are using me, you are going to require me to stay here,” I asked, letting out a sigh a moment later when I realised that meant I wouldn’t be able to go to the sky.

“You can travel anywhere, you have such a large store of energy that you could go anywhere,” he replied contemplatively before scratching at his non-existent chin for a moment. “But it’ll be best for you to return here. Once I have full access to your universe, you’ll be free to return to the sky permanently.”

“So, to reiterate,” I sighed, suddenly realising how badly the odds were stacked against me in this bargain. “No harming humans and no running back to the sky in exchange for my star and access back to Gravity Falls?”

“Bingo, kiddo,” he said, extending his hand as it burst into blue fire. I watched it a moment before smirking right back, letting my own hand become an ivory blaze. He laughed at the action as he took my hand and shook it rigorously, our flames fighting for dominance until we separated. “Pleasure doing business with you, Shooting Star. I’m going to head back to my crib but I suppose I’ll be swinging round to see ya real soon. If you get lonely, you know where I am!” With a click of his fingers, my star slowly drifted down from its perch above him and came to rest in the palm of my hand, sending a familiar wave of warmth through me.

And, with one final cackle, he was shooting off towards his floating pyramid.

As soon as he was a mere speck of yellow in the distance, I allowed my attention to rest on the glowing crystal hovering in my palm. For the first time in what felt like weeks, I felt the corners of my mouth begin to lift, the softest of smiles forming on my lips as I gazed upon my star. Everything felt so warm beneath my skin and I hummed happily, feeling content to let out a constant, gentle white glow as I pressed the star to my throat. As if sensing my thoughts, a black cord coiled around my neck and allowed the gem to rest against my sternum.

Though I didn’t know what I _could_ do in that moment, I knew it would all come to me eventually. The voices of the shards were mere thoughts in my head now, sharing a single consciousness that reminded me of the colourful commentary I had back before Weirdmageddon.

While lost in my own thoughts, I had been deaf to the approach of another creature, this one three times my height and looking like a malformed spider. Its pincers cracked at me warningly and I made to move out its way, pausing only when I noticed the way it eyed the precious stone clasped around my neck.

“Where’d you get that, mortal?” it hissed, voice sounding like scales smoothing over gravel.

“It is mine,” I answered calmly, unable to help the protective, snarling rage that began to rear its ugly head. I was above this, to even be speaking to such a grotesque creature about _my star—_

When had I started thinking like that?

Movement snapped me out of my thoughts when the thing tried to reach out a long, spindly leg to touch my star. I retaliated before I could even think the action through, my fingers sinking into its sickeningly squishy flesh and _yanking_ on it as hard as I could. With my newfound strength, the thing went flying in a massive arc, my grip never loosening as I slammed it into the hard ground with a terrible crack.

Smoke began to pour from my exposed skin, white flames burning away the already-damaged sweater I had been wearing. With an animalistic snarl, I let the flames consume the creature that had tried to touch my star, had _dared_ to touch _me._ Loud shrieks filled the air and I gritted my teeth, not releasing my grip on the near-charcoal leg until the sounds stopped and the creature was as close to ash as possible.

“Nobody—” I yelled, dropping the now dead demon’s leg as the fire continued to consume me. I felt the fire like another appendage, slowly licking at the air around us as if trying to detect anymore danger. “ _Nobody_ is allowed to touch me! Never again!”

The image of my human brother snapping the pendant from around my neck flashed through my head and made my blood boil. I remembered the helpless feeling of having everything taken away from me, Ford’s proud smile dancing at the edges of my vision as he stole my power and my shard. The way his face had transformed into one of pure, unadulterated rage and hatred, his eyes bleeding his desire for me to have never existed in the first place.

“ _Nobody!_ ”

_I don’t trust you!_

The fire began to sink lower against my skin, my glow softening enough to reveal that the clothes I had put on this morning were now burnt rags on the floor. Instead, a navy and purple leotard stretched from my hips to curl around my throat, a pair of matching stockings clinging to my legs. The material was covered in a fine layer of glowing stars, each flickering and shifting, almost as if the material was a living print of the night sky. A sheer, pale blue skirt billowed out from the back of the leotard and was connected to the middle finger of each of my hands with a ring. The fabric shifted at each minute movement, like the rolling waves beneath an equally vast sky.

Feeling less like the human I had been before Dipper and Ford had shattered my peace this morning, I tangled my fingers in my hair, hating that it didn’t feel as natural now that I was becoming something completely new. I tried to listen to the part of me that was purely the star but found it was becoming overshadowed by the nostalgia of my human parts. With an exasperated sigh, I coiled it into a tight bun on the top of my head, forming a pink ribbon to hold it in place. If this was what it took to appease the mortal part of myself, then I would do it for however long I needed to.

With one last check of how I looked, I let my pale white glow begin to shine once more, noticing with a huff of annoyance that there was still the slightest blue tinge at the edges. I swore that, by the time our deal was finished, I would make Bill undo whatever he had done. In the meantime, however, there was an infinite chasm of space around me— space that I would be forced to call home for however long this agreement between us lasted.

Until I was called upon, it was time to build a safe place for myself.

And kill anyone who got too close.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Happy Month-versery for this story! I'm super glad that people seem to be enjoying it!
> 
> Next chapter we jump to see what's happening in Gravity Falls. And, when given the option to tag along, will Mabel join Bill for one of his visits back to get back at her family a little?
> 
> Spoilers: YOU BET  
> (this is a Mabel-centric story so there won't often be flashes to things from the other Pines' POV)
> 
> Also I hope the picture came out alright! I spent about a week with 4 different outfit ideas for Star!Mabel and this just seemed like the most elegant and beautiful of all of them. Because, really, stars are so beautiful but man they will burn you BAD.


	12. Smart Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel is gone.
> 
> Mabel comes back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was not how I planned for for this chapter to go at all.  
> I hit a bit of writer's block this last week but I think I've ended this chapter at a good point to make a killer follow-up chapter.  
> Thank you all so much for the kudos and comments, it always makes my day!

**3 rd Person P.O.V.**

She was gone.

_She was gone. She was gone. She was—_

“…Mabel…?” Dipper whispered, voice cracking as he stared straight at the spot his sister had disappeared. His bottom jaw trembled, a strange hollowness throbbing deep in his chest as he tried to comprehend what had happened.

Stan was no better, his knees hitting the floor with a bone-rattling thud as all the strength seemed to leave him. The spot that Mabel had filled was empty and the space around Stan felt like a vacuum, sucking all of the air from his lungs. He knew there had been some warmth in the apologetic look she had shot him as she pulled away from his embrace and, yet, that had disappeared the moment she’d remembered that Ford and Dipper had also been watching. The look on her face before she had disappeared, the detached coolness of her gaze that looked as if she hadn’t recognised them—it made Stan’s temples pound.

For the first time in his life, Stan couldn’t think of anything to say.

“…Mabel?” Ford had called softly, voice catching in his throat when his own words echoed back to him. Machines sparked dazedly, the tube that had contained the star still splayed out in a broken heap of glass upon the floor. Distantly, the scientist part of him chided him that it needed to be cleaned up for the safety of his lab, but his body wasn’t quite up to speed.

When Dipper bolted out of the lab, his eyes streaming seemingly without end, some coherent thought returned to Stan. He stumbled backwards, falling against a shelf and sending more empty vials to shatter upon the floor. He gasped for air, feeling like a drowning man being sucked down into a dark place where no-one could—

As much as Stan wanted to fall into a heap on the floor, to mourn his niece who had disappeared as quickly as his own brother had 33 years prior, he knew he couldn’t. If Dipper was anything like him, which, God help Stan, he knew he was, the boy would need someone with their head on straight to get through whatever was going to happen. With a quick glance at the rapidly paling complexion of his own twin brother, he knew immediately that it wasn’t going to be his nephew’s idol.

“Come on,” he growled roughly, taking a few unsteady, shaking steps towards Ford. At the action, Ford turned his big, owlish eyes onto him and his bottom lip trembled, eyes wet in a way that he hadn’t seen since the end of Weirdmageddon. “You gotta get up, Ford.”

The order had the opposite effect and the genius’ legs gave out from under him, his pitching body dragging Stan down with him. They both fell roughly to the hard concrete floor, both finding themselves clutching one another in a desperate cling, remembering a time when they had been pulled apart for three decades.

But this wasn’t about them.

Mabel was the one who was gone.

“Why?” Stan finally asked, finding his voice choked as sobs threatened to wrack his entire body. His eyes were dangerously wet and even his quick hands were not able to pause the flow of tears. “Why did you tell her you didn’t trust her?!”

Ford tilted his head back, locking misty, distant eyes onto his twin’s face. His mouth twitched before he hunched his shoulders and openly sobbed, his shoulders shaking with the force of the action. He shook his head, his mouth opening and closing as if he were trying to say something but nothing was coming out. He raised his trembling hands and pressed his palms into his eyes as hard as he could, rolling into the fetal position as he cried his eyes out.

Stan tried to be angry—he knew how badly his brother’s paranoia had harmed his niece. He knew he’d driven her to a dark place where she had willingly walked away with Bill Cipher, a creature that had treated her right to live like he was flipping a coin. He knew that Ford’s scorn felt like a death sentence, had felt the burn of it on his insides for near 40 years after ruining his chance to get into his dream school.

He knew it.

But he’d already lost Ford for too many years.

“It’s okay,” Stan finally hushed, laying a hand on his brother’s shoulder as he faithfully took his place beside him. The sobs increased in intensity and he could only stay by his side, too afraid to open his mouth again lest he start crying as well.

Stan was angry.

But it could wait until Mabel came back.

 

 

 

 

**Mabel P.O.V.**

I could get used to the Nightmare Realm.

Sure, there were no stars in the sky and no indication of when day became night, but the territory I had built was cosy enough that I was comfortable staying there for a while. Though I could have found a spot, I’d ended up tearing down the small world the spider demon had created, slowly letting my radiance leak until the small pocket world I desired began to take its place.

Inside was nothing but rolling hills, the grass covered in a fine layer of dew that made the green sparkle in just the right places. The sky above was the perfect blend of navy and purple, a million white diamonds creating the milky way across the metaphorical canvas. I even had a patch of blue flowers, their phantom centres sparkling with the star pieces they had been created around. It was like being back in Gravity Falls, back before everything had gone to hell and I’d lied to keep myself safe.

_…And I don’t trust you!_

Of course, I wanted to go to the sky the most. There was a calling at the back of my head, like someone was urging me home now that I was together again, but I knew that if I did go, it would make it harder to come back to keep up my end of the deal. So for now I was content to lie among the grass dreamscape I had created, looking up at the stars that tried to beat the radiance of my own crystal.

After what I guessed was a week of lying there, enjoying the coolness of the night sky, I found my human skin began to pale. I wondered if the other stars looked like I did, if they had a vessel that they had to take care of or if they were just crystals all the time. When my body began trying to fail on me, I let myself drink and eat, the needs not feeling pressing at all but knowing I still needed to partake in them.

I wasn’t quite ready to lose my human form yet.

“Nice place you got here, Shooting Star!” Bill had called as he broke the gentle silence I had allowed to fall over my pocket realm. The colour drained from the space almost immediately and I glared up at him, angered that he had spoilt the scenery with his demonic presence. “Oof, someone doesn’t look too happy to see me.”

“I was just beginning to forget what your voice sounded like,” I sighed, sitting up on the now-colourless grass and leaning my arms on my knees. “You come to ask for a portal that I don’t know how to open?”

“You’ll figure it out quick,” he replied easily, waving a hand through the air as if he were brushing off the comment. “You stars aren’t complicated from what I’ve been told. You pay attention to your shitty emotions and, when you want something, you make it happen.”

“Ah, yes, because you are so above emotions,” I called, rolling my eyes at his haughty words. “It’s not like someone was coerced into chasing us, effectively causing his own demise, because he got _angry._ ”

There was a brief flash of red, Bill’s eye going black in rage before he forced himself to calm down. I sighed in disappointment, having hoped that I could distract Bill enough with his temper tantrums to forget about going back to my home dimension.

“Good to see you have your old spark back,” he ground out, floating down to eye level as he held out a hand. I took it without hesitation, using him as leverage to get back to my feet. “Now, to your old dimension, Shooting Star. I have chaos to bring and Pines to torment.”

“How long since I disappeared?” I asked, wanting to be sure as I focused my thoughts on Gravity Falls.

“Nine days. Not too long,” he answered easily, rubbing his hands together in glee. “Been watching them torment each other since you disappeared. Gotta hand it to Fez, he’s holding things together surprisingly well.”

Warmth flooded my chest at the knowledge but I made sure to keep my face clear, not wanting him to see my relief at the news that Stan was doing well. I merely hummed backed noncommittedly, raising my hand as I tried to focus my energy. The star against my sternum began to glow even brighter, my veins coursing with the white fire that so desperately wanted to be released. With a flex of my fingers, a white flash cut through the space, growing until the empty basement of the Mystery Shack could be seen.

“There,” I stated, trying to hide the awe I felt at seeing one of my abilities. I must have failed though because I caught Bill’s smirk over my shoulder when I turned to look back.

“Should have kidnapped a star instead of terrorising your Uncle all those years ago,” he praised, ruffling my hair despite my protests. “Thanks, kid! I’m gonna go have some fun!”

He began to move forward, his eye gleaming with a heightened level of chaotic malice. As he approached the glowing gateway, however, he stilled, slowly turning to look at me with a thoughtful expression.

“Actually, you want to come with, kid?” he asked, taking me completely by surprise. He offered me his hand once more, his gaze lacking any ill-intent as his eye slowly began to examine my face for a reaction. “You could come have some fun with me or even just see your world again. What do you think?”

I thought on it for a moment before slowly reaching to take his hand, squeezing his fingers briefly as I came to stand by the portal with him. “Sure,” I murmured, laying my free hand over my star. It pulsed at my touch and I stilled, letting the calm it brought wash over me before focusing once more on the portal. “I would like to see my flowers, I have missed them so very much.”

“And your family?” he asked, glancing at me from the corner of his eye. I knew he was waiting to see some sign of treachery, some indication that I was going to double-cross him as soon as we crossed through the border. “You don’t wish to visit them?”

I licked my lower lip, feeling the faint hints of dehydration begin to have its way with my human form. “What family?” I answered, baring my teeth in a hollow grin that seemed to shake Bill to his core.

And then I stepped through the portal.

The chaos of my departure had been wiped clean, the shards of my star’s container long having been disposed of. The only sign that anything had happened at all in the lab was the phantom outline of the portal that we stepped through, but even that faded the second Bill crossed over and I waved it away. The benches were strewn with papers and open books, pages dog-eared roughly, almost as if a desperate hand had touched them too harshly. It didn’t take a genius to realise what they were doing and my suspicions were confirmed when I saw that Dipper and Ford’s journals were open to chapters on inter-dimensional travel.

Why they wanted me back, I had no clue.

Perhaps they thought I was still deluded, that the influence of Bill had clouded my judgement when I stepped through the portal. Perhaps they believed I wasn’t a star, that I was caught in the radiance of the crystal’s beauty so deeply that the world no longer made sense to me. Or maybe, despite whatever history we had, they finally saw me as something useful, wanting nothing more than to steal my star and experiment on my body to sate their sickening curiosity. Either way, I knew that their actions would be for nought.

I wasn’t going back to who I was before.

“Oh, boy!” Bill laughed, rubbing his hands together in pure glee. “I don’t know where to start! So much ground to cover and so little time! Catch ya, Shooting Star!” With a bright flash of his blue flames, Bill was gone, leaving me to stand alone in the deserted basement I had once been banned from.

For so long, I had wanted nothing more than to be down here in the basement, working beside Ford and Dipper. My twin, who we both knew was so gifted and intelligent, had even been given his own desk to work on, his notes and half-chewed pens strewn across the dark wood.

_Sorry, sweetheart, but it’s too dangerous for you down here…_

I clenched my jaw, feeling a self-righteous anger begin to course through my veins as I remembered every time I had been dismissed. I remembered the lonely nights in the shack—the times when Dipper had worked with Ford throughout the night and I had been left to drift off alone. I remembered the ache in my stomach when Stan was off running tours and Ford and Dipper still didn’t come upstairs for breakfast. I remembered the blatant dismissal, when both men finally emerged only to eat, sleep and then close the vending machine in my face again.

I knew I wasn’t smart and that I didn’t deserve Ford’s attention like Dipper did. I knew I didn’t understand him like my brother did and could never bring him that same comfort. I _knew_ I had been the worst sister and niece imaginable but I had so desperately wanted to be around them both the last couple years. But they didn’t need me.

No.

They didn’t _want_ me.

Staring down at their hard word, their compilations of notes and files on how they might possibly bring me back, I couldn’t help the bitterness that tried to burn the back of my throat. They hadn’t wanted me when I had been human but, now that I was worthy enough to be a _specimen_ , they were willing to spend some effort looking for me. I was tempted to burn it all down, to destroy all of the stupid planning and research they had done, but the soft hum of the star against my chest stayed my hand.

As a star, I was better than that.

Slowly, I turned away from the spread documents to the elevator shaft, glancing up at the empty carriage at the very top, waiting for the two geniuses to come back. I jumped up the shaft, feeling gravity lose its hold on me as I floated gently up to the underside of the carriage, laying my hand against the cold metalwork. I focused my energy on the palm of my hand, warmth flooding my muscles as I began to sink through the metal. Soon enough, I stood on the inside of the elevator, the floor completely untouched and leaving me to wonder just what I couldn’t do.

As I opened the vending machine, I could hear the distant voices of the rest of the Pines family. They seemed to be in the midst of an argument, the three of them in the kitchen and easily out of spying distance as I made my way to the front door. Without so much as a backwards glance, I left them all behind, moving along the familiar trail into the woods where I had originally found the beautiful vessels of my shards.

As I had feared, very little remained of the ombre blue buds. The earth was picked clean and whatever had remained discarded on the ground had long since decomposed over the weeks. With a sombre heart, I knelt in the dirt, not at all worried about spoiling the fine material that swirled around my hips.

“I’m sorry…” I whispered, feeling the familiar burn in my eyes as I stared down at the bare earth.

I’d loved those flowers, had felt nothing but complete joy at holding them and sketching their unique shape. They’d kept my pieces safe for longer than I could have possibly imagined, cradling them from all who wanted to harm them as they waited for me to come. When I got put back together, they had lost their own makeshift pieces, the lives they had lived ceasing to exist.

“I’m so sorry…”

The black tears began to drip down my face, shimmering in the low light like a mini galaxy. I dug my fingers into the dirt, remembering every tiny detail about those beautiful flowers. As new seedlings began to burst from the ground, growing and expanding into perfect blue buds, I knew that it could never make up for what had been done to the flowers that had been here before. These mere imitations would never hold star fragments in their lifetimes, nor would they suffer like their predecessors did. But, despite their short comings, it made my heart feel just a touch lighter, like I would no longer drown under the guilt of having caused these flowers their untimely deaths.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered one last time, bending to place a soft kiss to the petals of one of the flowers. “I am a selfish being. Please, enjoy this life I have given you.”

I began to climb to my feet, the movement of my limbs smoother than it had ever been as a human. As I wondered what Bill was up to and who he was terrorising, the snap of a twig made me snap my head around, staring at the well-worn trail where a figure was now standing.

“…Mabel…?”

 


	13. Preference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel knew Ford had always preferred Dipper.
> 
> Just because she was a star now didn't mean that she was going to changer her perception of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it  
> This is the moment many of you have been waiting for  
> T H E M E L T D O W N
> 
> Trust me, I've been hearing the feedback on people wanting Stan to go bananas on Ford and Dipper for driving Mabel away. HOWEVER, there were a couple reasons I didn't think it would work for this story.
> 
> 1- Stan would do anything to keep his family together after losing Ford for so many years. He'd be furious and quite hostile, but I don't think he'd blow up at his brother like some want.  
> 2- This is MABEL's pain. Out of all of the characters, I wanted her to be the one to finally lose it with her grunkle and twin.
> 
> So here it is, in all its glory.  
> (I'm hyping this up way too much. Have a nice read!)

“…Mabel…?”

I was surprised I hadn’t heard his approach, knowing that the foliage around the clearing was becoming crisp under the summer sun. It should have been impossible to move soundlessly in this kind of environment, meaning he was either far stealthier than I had originally thought or I really had been quite deep in my own guilt.

It was probably both.

“…Stanford Pines,” I said, raising my head from the flowers by my ankles to glance at the frozen man. His eyes were blown wide, a visible tremble going up his limbs as he stared at me as if he were unsure if I was real or not. “Come to steal my star again, have you?”

 

 

The words shook him from his frozen state, his hands coming to rub roughly at his eyes before looking at me once more. “I must be tireder than I thought,” he mumbled to himself, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead in what I could only describe as pure _pain._ “I thought… I thought you were my grand-niece…”

Rage surged through my veins and I felt the star around my neck begin to blaze bright crimson. “Are you trying to _deny me_ now, old man?” I hissed, drawing my shoulders back as I felt one of my palms begin to burn. “Gonna pretend it’s not me? Pretend little, sweet, forgiving Mabel is just off with her stupid human friends doing _stupid_ girl things?!”

Ford blinked sluggishly back at me, his dazed expression slowly shifting back to dawning horror as he began to realise I wasn’t some nightmare sent to haunt him. In the back of my head, I knew it wasn’t too farfetched of a thing, after all, Bill was back with his psychological mind tricks, but it still sent fury crawling down my spine.

“Mabel, it’s really you?” he whispered, eyes becoming disgustingly wet as he stumbled closer. I moved back almost immediately, making sure he didn’t come closer than he already was. He didn’t notice it at first but, when he finally did, he stopped, a heartbroken expression twisting his features into a grimace. “Mabel…? Sweetheart…?”

“Oh, it’s ‘sweetheart’ now?” I spat, flicking my wrist and sending a warning bolt of fire onto the grass between us. He backed up immediately as the grass disintegrated under the scarlet light before obediently extinguishing. We were still too close to the flowers for my comfort. “Not ‘traitor’? Or ‘liar’? Or ‘ _stupid idiot_ ’?!”

“No, I—Sweetheart, I’ve never called you a—”

“ _’I can’t trust you, Mabel’!_ ” I yelled, feeling the reminiscent pain of my mortal self begin to bubble up beneath the surface of my skin. I was a star, I should have been above this, but I was still feeling the scorn of a man who thought he was _better than me._

The sound of pounding footsteps echoed distantly through the woods and I tensed, trying to gauge who was approaching and how far away they were. By the brief look of relief flashing across Ford’s face, I could only guess it was the rest of his pathetic family.

_Pathetic family?_

A surge of uncertainty made me hunch my shoulder in self-defence, slightly worried about how detached my thoughts were becoming but feeling as if I couldn’t stop them. I tried my best to shake it off for now, there would be a safer time later to ruminate on my rapidly evolving mindset but it certainly wasn’t now.

“Called for back-up?” I growled, backing up another step as I glanced around for potential escape routes. Worst case scenario, I’d open a portal and escape to another realm. “Can’t face me without someone around to hold your hand, huh?”

“Mabel, that star is controlling you,” Ford tried to plead, eyes wide and earnest as he tried to come closer. “Please, sweetheart, you have to take it off.”

“Mind control?” I scoffed, rolling my eyes in amusement as I stared him down. “All your PhD’s, all of your brilliance, and that’s the conclusion you come to, to try and explain what is going on? Christ, Stanford, you were obsessed with a _demon_ for half a decade, are stars so hard to believe in?”

The steps got louder until a small body burst through the tree line, landing beside his great uncle with a loud oomph. Dipper’s eyes were solely on Ford as he checked him over for injuries, meaning it took far too long for him to turn his face up to meet my gaze. By then, Stan had joined the party, his eyes wide as the three Pines all stared at me in a mix of wonder and horror.

“Mabel?” Stan gasped, his shoulders slumping in palpable relief as a worried smile spread across his face. He pulled away from his brother, ignoring his protests, and he ran to my side, pulling me into a tight, boneless embrace. “You’re _okay!_ Oh, pumpkin, I’ve been worried sick.”

I let myself enjoy the embrace for a moment, not quite letting my arms hold him back but not actively pushing him away either. When Dipper took a shaky step in our direction, however, I firmly pulled Stan off and moved out of grasping range.

“Pumpkin…?”

“Pines,” I stated, tucking my hands behind my back as I stood up straight. “Stan, Dipper… Ford. It seems the message hasn’t gotten across yet but I’m not your Mabel anymore.” Dipper’s mouth fell open, a brief look of outrage flashing across his features but I held up my hand, effectively stopping him before he could start. “Yes, yes, we’re twins blah, blah. ‘Can’t be a star’ and all that jazz. You have already said your piece, Dipper, and it obviously didn’t work. I left with Bill, after all.”

At the reminder, the three men fell immediately silent, eyes darting around in case a flash of yellow alerted them to Bill’s presence.

“He’s not here,” I sighed, hating how predictable humans seemed to be. No wonder Bill was constantly getting bored with them, not even pressing at my temples could alleviate the headache that was beginning to form. “We struck a bargain so you’ll probably see him later but he won’t be able to physically hurt any of you.”

“A bargain,” Ford repeated, looking beyond horrified as he stared at me, completely slack-jawed. “You made a _bargain with—!_ ”

“What did you give him?” Dipper asked sharply, looking equal parts upset about how I was treating them and queasy at the idea of Bill having power over me. “Mabel, _what did you give him?!_ ”

“I open portals for him,” I said, shrugging my shoulders in easy dismissal despite the shock seizing the two geniuses. “From the nightmare realm to here. I’ve been discovering just how much power I was denying myself by keeping my pieces apart. Now, why did I do that again…?” I hummed quietly to myself, touching my chin with a finger as I feigned thought. “Oh, that’s right. Because Bill was free and it was the only way I could keep him from _coming after you guys!_ ”

“You said that last time,” Stan quickly piped up, shooting his brother a sharp look when he saw him try to open his mouth. It seemed as if we both knew that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was going to piss me off more than he already had. “What did you mean? Why was the incomplete star keeping him away?”

“A sensible question, finally,” I sighed, smiling loosely back at the old man before wiping the expression away completely. “Stars can’t interfere with mortals, not unless they possess our crystal form.” I cupped the shining gem against my sternum, unable to help the fond look of love I shot it. “If my star was complete, Bill knew I wouldn’t be able to protect you all. While I had a piece of it, I was a lot weaker but still strong enough to keep him back.”

“Did _Bill_ tell you this?” Ford nearly growled, the disgust in his voice at saying the demon’s name clear as day.

“…No,” I answered slowly, releasing a calming breath as I regarded the three men before me. The star around my neck drifted slowly into the air and I raised a hand to loosely cup it, needing that reassuring warmth flowing through my veins once more. “The shards did… Would you like to see?”

I could tell from the expression on Ford’s face that he hadn’t been expecting me to try and prove my authenticity. He shot a worried look over to Dipper and Stan’s faces, his eyes briefly searching theirs for any sign of fear or hesitation but found none. They seemed to merely be curious, my twin especially staring at the star like it was the answer to life itself.

“…Okay,” Ford finally conceded, voice low and eyes dark with apprehension. He moved closer to the other two, pulling Dipper behind him and Stan flush against his side, trying to protect both of them in case I was trying to pull a fast one. “…Okay, show us.”

I began to hum softly, feeling the familiar vibrations surge through my body as my star faded to a soft baby blue. I held the stone aloft, letting the light pour through my fingers like an unstoppered fountain until it coalesced around us, forming the attic of the mystery shack. I heard three collective gasps of shock and wonder from the Pines but I repressed my smirk, remembering that it was their disbelief that was forcing me to show them what I was.

_“…Hi? Who’s there?_ ”

The soft cadence of my own voice echoed in my ear and I turned to survey the scene, seeing a smaller, far more mortal Mabel Pines sitting against her bed as if she were frozen in place. My eyes darted to rest momentarily on Ford and Stan, seeing the way their eyes fixated immediately on the other version of myself as if they were yearning to pull her straight out of the illusion.

They probably were.

“ _I’ll be… together soon._ ”

The voice of the shard sent a spark of reminiscent joy down my body but seemed to have the opposite effect on the Pines, the two older men whirling around to try and find its source. “Who said that?!” Stan snapped, raising his fists in his customary boxing stance. Though he was putting on an air of confidence, I could feel the nerves trying to shake him at his core and disrupt his whole facade.

“Those were the first corporeal words of my precious star shard,” I explained, rubbing my thumb gently over the space my first shard now filled. “The pieces had gained a form of sentience over the years when we were all torn apart, each one an individual part of myself that I had lost. When I found that first piece… it was like everything _fit!_ ” I didn’t know how to explain it, the perfect feeling of completeness that I didn’t realise I was missing back when I was fully human. I moved to sit on the bed beside my phantom self, gazing down at her with an almost piteous expression.

“That was the night Ford and Dipper dug up your flowers,” Stan said quietly, beginning to pull away from his brother’s vice-like grip. The genius looked confused at the comment but remained silent, trying desperately to understand just what had happened that night. “And I snuck you the shard… after you panicked when the knuckleheads ignored you and stole your journal.”

“Good to know someone remembers,” I sighed, running a hand through my phantom self’s hair. “What a frail child I was when I was human, relying on pills to ease my mood swings and thinking that her newfound relative loved her.” My eyes darted up, locking onto Ford’s paling face with as much cool indifference as I could muster. “But she… _we_ weren’t good enough for you… were we, Ford?”

“Mabel, you know that isn’t true!” Ford began to protest, the distress on his face almost looking earnest as he tried to appeal to my naïve side. “I _love_ you, sweetheart! You and Dipper mean the world to me!”

But I wasn’t going to fall for that.

Never again.

“Oh, _please!_ ” I snapped, dropping any attempt at civility as he tried to plead his innocence, as if I hadn’t been there to witness everything he had done. “Me _and_ Dipper? Stanford Pines, you only ever wanted _one of us_ and we all know who that is!”

Silence descended on the four of us like a thick blanket, heavy and suffocating as it tried to plug my lungs as I glared at the source of all of my troubles. Ever since I had trusted Stan, ever since I had refused to shut down the portal, everything I had done had been to try and appease my new relative. He’d made Dipper so happy that it had made me feel wonderful, glad that my brother had finally found someone who shared his love for the weird.

“You tried to take Dipper from me,” I stated, unable to help the slight choke in my voice as I remembered the beginning of Weirdmageddon. By the heartbroken look that pulled at Ford’s features, I knew he realised _exactly_ what I was talking about. “My twin, _mine,_ and you tried to tell him how I was holding him back. How I had doomed the world with _your_ twin. Sure, I wasn’t the smart twin, Ford, but you had _no right!_ ”

This time, I threw the next crimson fireball at a tree over their shoulders, not batting an eyelid as it snapped the tree in two and swallowed it whole. The flames cast shadows over Ford’s stricken face, making the bags under his eyes look like sickly bruises.

“Mabel…”

“And I forgave that,” I stated, straightening my shoulders as I stared down at the man who had tried to take my whole world from me. “And I forgave all the times you asked to speak to Dipper during our video chats and then hung up before you told me goodbye. I forgave you for the nights where, despite everything, you let Dipper down in the lab and told me it was off limits. I forgave you for stealing my journal, for ignoring me, for making me feel like the stupidest person in the entire _world—_ ”

My voice broke and, with dawning horror, I realised I had tears pooling down my face. My bottom lip had begun to tremble but I clenched my jaw, refusing to back down this time like I always had.

“I did everything I could to make you happy,” I stated, looking him straight in the eye with all of the pain and hatred I felt for him in that moment. “But… you never loved me for me, did you? You kept me around because of _Dipper._ Because you and Dipper hadn’t figured out how to pull away from me yet. Do you have any idea what it’s like to _be_ the stupid twin?”

I rubbed at the tear tracks lining my face, grimacing when they showed no sign of slowing down any time soon. I let out a tired, defeated sigh, feeling my shoulders slump as I stared across at my human family who had not offered a single word of defence at my accusations. If anything, they looked as if they had taken a beating, their shoulders slumped and faces filled with nothing but misery. I sucked in a long, calming breath, trying to remind myself that they couldn’t hurt me anymore. I was above this. I was a star. I was—

It was hard to remember when I was looking right at them.

“And now…” I whispered, sniffling a little as I let the illusion of the attic fade away. My star’s glow shifted back to a soft blue, betraying the sadness that sluggishly dripped through my veins. “Now you only want me back because I produce a lot of power. Well, I’m not going to be your emotional punching bag anymore! You didn’t want me as a twin _or_ as a grand-niece. So, now? You will _never_ have me as a _star!_ ”

Without even giving any of them the chance to open their mouths, I leapt back, feeling the wall between realities slide apart to allow me to pass through. The last thing I saw before finding myself standing beneath the starry sky in my pocket dimension were the tears pouring down Ford’s face, the pain in his eyes too visceral to be anything but real.

And, for just a second, I allowed my human half to mourn what she had lost.

…What _we_ had lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm noticing my pictures of Mabel have her turning gradually more and more pale purple and honestly im kinda digging it so I might keep going with it/incorporate it into the story.
> 
> Okay a couple things to note based on some of the feedback I'm getting:
> 
> 1\. I'm not intending for the star to be controlling Mabel (like Ford tried to reason). Mabel IS the star.  
> 2\. Mabel is different from who she was before because a) she's been very badly hurt by the ones she loves the most in the world and b) being complete means she is struggling with knowing she is a celestial being (i.e. being above all of this drama) whilst also retaining very mortal memories and feelings. So a huge part of her is saying return to the sky while the other is still screaming about the danger that Bill poses to the shack's occupants.  
> 3\. Ford and Dipper do care, they've fucked up a whole tonne but they do love Mabel. As this is from Mabel's point of view, sometimes she may perceive their genuine actions as a fake-out to try and get her back.
> 
>  
> 
> Some ideas floating around in my head to keep y'all entertained until the next chapter:   
> What happens if Mabel's star is re-broken?   
> How would Mabel react if her family got her star back?  
> What happens if she returns to the sky?
> 
> Till next time! <3


	14. Infinite Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel may have told them how angry she is but even that has not filled the empty holes left by her family.
> 
> The only way to figure out who you truly are, is to find out where you came from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I haven't updated in forever and this chapter doesn't have a picture. I'm sorry, uni picked back up and I just finished a couple assignments and a mid-sem but hopefully I will be back to updating this again soon.
> 
>  
> 
> I have loved reading all of the comments, thank you so so much! <3 I will try to respond to them as soon as I can.

Life in my old dimension meant very little to me anymore.

Bill asked me every time I opened a portal for him if I wanted to come, insisting I would find some comfort in making my ex-family suffer a bit. Each time, I offered him a mere shake of my head and ushered him through the portal, closing it immediately before I could catch a glimpse of anything on the other side.

Time didn’t make as much sense to me anymore, laying under an eternal sky of my own making. The only time I bothered to get up anymore was to open portals or, on the rarer occasions, when I was forced to facilitate a human necessity. My skin was growing paler each time I looked, now taking on a constant ethereal quality. Hunger rarely affected me anymore but every couple of days I was able to swallow a couple of bites of a conjured bread roll and a mouthful of water to sustain my human vessel.

Beneath my eternal night sky, I found that the small part of me that was still clinging to its humanity was beginning to reminisce. Until this point, it had been quiet, swaddled beneath layers of pain and vehement rage, so deeply buried that it couldn’t reach the surface of my mind. Now that all the anger I had held for so long was out, it began to be easier to see past the red tinge of my memories.

The way Ford had watched me as I left had almost felt genuine, almost as if… he truly had been in pain. The naïve part of me kept insisting that this was all a big misunderstanding, that Ford had never meant to hurt me with his favouritism and distrust. He’d never meant to make me feel isolated, like my soul was being ripped away as he took my brother from me. I knew, logically, that he was still half-convinced that, one day, I’d hurt Dipper like Stan had hurt him. The naïve part of me knew he loved me, that he saw the weird part of himself in me, and that it had killed him seeing me leave them. He’d never wanted to hurt me.

But he did, the star part of myself reasoned, shifting my attention back to the facts at hand. That, though Ford had tried to take Dipper from me, he was so arrogant that he hadn’t considered the possibility that _I_ might leave _them—_ that I’d abandon them before they had the chance to do it to me.

The human part of me quietened once more, stewing in the depths of my mind and re-playing the moments that had convinced her that Ford loved us. From him praising us for bringing back the unicorn hair to nights when we would sit together and read from my new journal—I’d thought we had made so much _progress._

_I miss him…_

No, we don’t!

The star around my throat began to burn crimson at my growing anger, pressing the human parts of myself down into the further recesses of my mind. I’d been lounging around for too long, enjoying the luxury of human memories and letting them distract me from what I was now. Staring up at the stars, I knew where I needed to go, what I needed to see to find out who I really was now. Sucking in an unnecessary lungful of artificial air, I felt the wall between realities thin beneath my back and I allowed myself to fall through the newly-formed portal.

The first thing I felt was the darkness, pressing in on me from all sides and threatening to swallow me whole. For a moment, all of my glorious light was extinguished, absorbed by the oppressive obsidian that encouraged me to _just sleep, it’s okay, you can rest forever—_

With a start, I felt my star explode outwards, blue and white searing at the edges of the darkness. I could hear the phantom shrieks of the black space as it was repulsed before all was quiet, the silence pressing at my skin like a weighted blanket. I’d never felt comfort like this—had never known how content and perfect the quiet could be as I drifted in the inky black, surrounded by my own halo of blue-tinged light.

_“…Hello…?”_

I blinked sluggishly, a familiar warmth filling my chest as a voice so similar to my shards drifted past my ears. As I pulled my glow in more so that I could see into the darkness better, I began to make out more pinpricks of light coming closer.

“Hello,” I called back, hearing my own voice echo across the space like ripples on a pond.

Bodies moved and shifted in the darkness around me, their skin translucent and yet seeming to hold galaxies of stars within them. One by one, the humanoid forms began to glow brighter, stars flaring to life around their throats, tinged different shades of the rainbow. Eyes slit their faces, pupils reflecting the colour of their stars, while their hair blazed like tamed flames around their bodies.

Stars.

“ _Who are you?_ ” the star before me asked, her voice echoing in the void of space around us. Her eyes and hair shone a pale green, wisps of lime-tinted fire cascading in voluptuous curls around the outline of her face.

“I’m…” I began before I felt the words die at the back of my throat. I blinked slowly, feeling the weight of the realisation press down on my chest and squeeze at my heart. “I don’t know…”

At the confession, the severity of the star’s fiery gaze softened as she came closer. With the fluidity and confidence of a being of infinite power, she reached forward and laid a translucent hand against my own star. At the touch, I felt myself shudder, fighting back the urge to rip my star out of her grasp.

“ _A star is known by many names,_ ” the creature stated, fingers curling softly around the edges of my gem. Light flashed across her fingers, racing up her arm before her hair blazed an electric blue. Her grip loosened, a tremble causing her fingers to slip away from the star on my sternum as her flames sank back to their soothing green. “ _…But it has been millennia, sister, since we last heard yours._ ”

“…Sister?” I asked, voice coming out hushed and stilted. The title had been said with so much warmth and affection, an obvious love there that I hadn’t felt in a long time. “You… you remember me?”

“ _How could I forget you?_ ” she asked, her translucent face splitting into a wide grin. I could just faintly make out the dark green tears seeping down her cheeks, my whole chest aching with a phantom pain that surely came from the star around my throat. Her warm palms found my face and soon I was enveloped in her arms, an endless amount of soothing heat pulsing against my skin. “ _Our precious sister…_ ”

Though I knew they didn’t have the same biology as me, I could still feel the constant thrum of warmth beating in her chest. Before long, I felt the same hot tears begin to cascade down my own face as more bodies joined the embrace.

_…Our precious sister…_

“But… I don’t remember anything!” I choked, trying to push the sobs down as I dragged myself out of their hold. Their collective eyes watched me curiously, a few bright orbs briefly flashing with pain at the turmoil I was obviously going through. “I don’t know what I _am_ or who you all are or… or…” I scrubbed the ball of my palm across my face, trying and failing to stop the flow of tears under the gazes of hundreds of stars. “I don’t even know _who_ I am anymore.”

“ _Oh, sister…_ ” the pale-green star hummed, pulling away from the others to stand before me in the void. She looked me straight in the eyes, laying her hands upon my shoulders with her warm, gentle grasp. “ _You don’t_ have _to know… You can be whoever you want to be…_ ” She folded her lean, lithe body in half, resting so that our foreheads touched and her apple-green eyes could stare deep into my own. “ _Now… what would you like to be called by us, dearest sister?_ ”

“Mabel,” I answered immediately, my bottom lip trembling at being given a _choice._ I knew in that moment that they were all happy to wait, perfectly prepared to stay at my side for as long as I needed until I came up with the name I wanted. “I’m Mabel. I always want to _be_ Mabel.”

“ _Then that is who you are then,_ ” the green star soothed, pushing my bangs away from my forehead. “ _Our sister Mabel._ ”

Just as I was getting ready to fall back into the green star’s arms, a sharp tug on my star had me cringing back, echoes of Bill’s annoyed voice reverberating inside of my skull. If I could glean anything from his nonsensical ranting, it was that h wanted a portal and was annoyed that I wasn’t in my pocket territory for his convenience.

“I have to go…” I murmured regretfully, casting sad, longing eyes onto the confused stars staring back. A frown creased the green star’s brow and her mouth opened, on the verge of asking a question when another being moved forward.

“ _Sister, is there a reason you are still in a mortal body?_ ” a star with bright red flames asked, a severity to the edges of her form that made me a tad wary. “ _You are together again, where you belong. Let the flesh die and then re-take your place here with us._ ”

“It’s not that simple,” I tried to reason, pushing down the yearning to do as she instructed. There was a reason for this form, I knew there was, even if things were beginning to become difficult to remember. “I still have things to do and… and people that I’m not ready to say goodbye to.”

“ _Mortals,_ ” the red star snorted, her low flames suddenly spiking into an angry crimson. “ _They mean nothing to us. By Axolotl, what have they embedded into your head? You are_ above _this, sister, you are not to interrupt the flow of their short lives._ ”

“But I _was_ one for a decade and a half!” I snapped back, feeling my own flames begin to react to my growing temper. The green star tried to move to my side, hands raised to soothe my anger, but I backed up, no longer knowing who was or wasn’t my ally. “I can’t just _leave_ and not impact their lives! People _notice_ that I’m gone!”

“ _And why,_ ” the crimson star continued, lowering her voice as she levelled her gaze with mine. “ _Do you care?_ ”

I felt myself recoil almost immediately, the sting of the question so visceral that I almost wondered if I had been physically slapped. I could still hear Bill calling me somewhere in the back of my head, his increasingly petulant snaps playing second fiddle to the confusion that I was in.

Why did I care?

_I miss them…_

_No, we don’t!_

Did I miss them?

“…I miss them,” I whispered, feeling my throat begin to tighten at the admission. My eyes burned, the heat rushing to my face at the dumbfounded expression clouding the scarlet star’s face. Her flames eased, sinking low against her skull and returning to a soft cherry colour. I stared back up at her, a ball of confusion and child-like homesickness beginning to claw its way up my insides as my wants and needs began to conflict with each other. “I miss them… I miss Grunkle Stan… and Dipper… and my pig and… and…”

Ford.

“They don’t want me,” I whispered, clutching my star so tightly to my chest that I hoped it would permanently sink into my skin. “They don’t want me as Mabel… They want me as a Star and I know that I need to be what I really am but I can’t bring myself to _leave them!_ ”

_—Shooting STAR! GET HERE RIGHT—_

“ _Sister, please, we know what mortals do with us!_ ” another star suddenly yelled, yellow tears leaking down her face in a steady stream. At her side, another star stood, missing a large chunk from her left side and the mirrored shards of her crystal. She had cracks running along her body, a perfect copy of the damage done to the gem around her throat. “ _They take and they take and they_ never _give back!_ ”

“But—”

“ _But you love them?_ ” the broken star whispered, her voice coming out distorted as her blank, white eyes stared at me with no emotion. Her white flames lay limp and flat against her back, the light dull and subdued, the very definition of a defeated being. “ _So did I._ ”

Whatever I could have said as a response died in the back of my throat at her words, seeing the clear regret that had her practically passed-out whilst upright. She was incomplete, pieces lost over an infinite universe in the hands of faceless mortals. Staring at all of the faces gathered around us, each a different shade of the colour spectrum, I could almost feel their pain, feel the mixture of hate and grief that was constantly simmering just beneath the surface. The stars themselves were angry, mourning sisters that the worlds were trusted with but who kept taking until there was nothing left.

“ _Leave them,_ ” the red star called, her sharp tongue like a whip slashing at my shoulder blades. “ _Or they’ll never let_ you _leave_ them.”

—SHOOTING STAR!

With Bill’s final roar of fury, I let my body fall straight between the fabric of realities, falling straight onto the grass of my pocket dimension millions of light years away. The looks of loss and hurt etched onto the stars’ faces felt like an ice brand across my chest, overcome with both a burning sensation and an impenetrable numbness.

More family I had left behind.

“ _You!_ ” Bill’s shrill yell came seconds before his crimson body flew straight for me. He came to float mere centimetres from my face, the sclera of his eye a foreboding black that reflected my pale expression straight back to me. “I _wanted_ a portal! How _dare_ you ignore me, Shooting Star! I ought to—”

“I’m sorry,” I hushed, my tone lacking the normal bite that it had when dealing with Bill. “I’ll open one now. I was just with the other stars—”

At the word, all of the red drained from Bill’s triangular body, being replaced by his usual toxic yellow. He blinked at me in confusion before his expression cleared, a look of glee practically making his eye shine in absolute delight.

“Well, hold on here!” Bill called quickly, rubbing his hands together like some mediocre cartoon villain. “Stars? You went up to the sky? How was it? Oh, you’ll have to tell me all about it.”

“Maybe later,” I hummed distractedly. I rubbed at my arms, wondering what it’d feel like if — _when_ —I let my mortal body die and allowed myself to be a true star. Would I still be able to feel skin? Would I lose any of my sensations?

Would I still be the same?

I had already changed so much in such a short amount of time that just thinking about it made my head hurt. Even as a human, I struggled to figure out just who and what I wanted to be. As a star, it was supposed to be simple and, yet, things had never felt so complicated.

Who was I really?

_Who do I want to be?_

“Guess we can save the campfire stories for later,” Bill replied, shrugging indifferently before gesturing at the empty space before us. “Come on, portal time, Shooting Star! I’m behind schedule and Pinetree has already had too many undisturbed dreams.”

I frowned at the comment, feeling an almost protective surge that I hadn’t experienced in weeks. With a wave of my hand, the fabric between the Nightmare Realm and my home universe collapsed, leaving behind an open doorway that beckoned the Dream Demon to cross it.

“Wanna come?” Bill offered as he always did. It was a routine for us—he offered and I declined.

“Sure,” I murmured before my brain could catch up to my body. Bill blinked momentarily in surprise before his eye tilted into a faux grin.

“Well, come on then, Shooting Star.”

As he floated through the distorted doorway, I found myself hesitating for the briefest of seconds. The star part of myself was telling us to return to our true sisters, to close the portal and forget that there were ever mortals who mattered to us. But then the human part of myself would remember the warmth of Grunkle Stan’s arms around me; the tightness in which Dipper would squeeze my hand when he was scared but trying to seem strong.

The way Ford smiled at me.

And I realised, somewhere inside of myself, that even if they were to break me down, to shatter me like the white star in the sky, that I wasn’t complete, not when my humanity kept clinging to its mortality. I wasn’t complete, not in mind and heart, and I never would be until I finally faced the remains of the Pines family who had once meant the world to me.

So, I sucked in a breath that I no longer needed.

And stepped back into my home world.


	15. You Can Always Come Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's a Shooting Star and everyone can see her burning but maybe it's also time to remember that she's not alone.
> 
> A.k.a. Mabel finally has an adult listen to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy it's been too long!
> 
> I've been caught up with assignments and dissection labs at uni and it's nice to finally have a couple days off (I say that while literally sitting at uni working on my weekly assignment XD ).
> 
> Anyway... Thought Mabel and Bill needed to remind each other of where they sit with each other and Mabel needed time with a couple adults who care about her that AREN'T her Grunkles.

The town of Gravity Falls knew Bill was back.

The Dream Demon had been anything but subtle since his release and he was desperately trying to instil the fear back into the citizens before they caught onto the fact that he couldn’t physically harm them. The streets were all but deserted when I stepped through the portal, no windows lit in the lowering light, almost as if the occupants had either left or were hoping they were not noticed.

“You haven’t held back,” I murmured softly, letting my gaze shift across the empty streets. A massive yellow triangle with a single black slit for an eye had been graffitied down the side of a building, a hasty message spray painted beneath it ominously.

_‘He’s watching you.’_

“Always have to be so dramatic,” I hummed, feeling the cool air ruffle the sheer skirt at my hips. I raised my hands, looking at the pale, unearthly skin wrapped around my very human bones. I didn’t appear fully human anymore if my skin was anything to go on, let alone the moving canvas that was my clothing. “How long has it been?” I asked absentmindedly, staring at my reflection in a nearby shop window. My eyes were a soft pink colour now, the pupils forming a five-pointed star.

“Since you left?” Bill queried, thoughtfully stroking his non-existent chin. “About a month all up, I think. But time is a mortal construct and so I haven’t been keeping count. Trust me, kid, you’ll stop caring about it too when you finally stay up in the sky.”

For once, his reassurance about returning to my ancestral home did not inspire confidence. My insides began to twist with what was probably a combination of a very mortal hunger and the uneasy human feelings I had been trying so desperately to bury. My pink eyes stared back at me unnervingly, so terribly intense in their gaze that even I recoiled.

“I don’t understand,” I stated, dragging my gaze away from the window to throw a sharp glare in Bill’s direction. “Why do you do this?”

“Do what?” he asked, throwing a stone at the window I had been looking at. It exploded with a harsh shattering sound, pieces of broken glass raining down on the interior of the shop. His eyes found mine and I remained unflinching, far too used to the Nightmare Dimension to be startled by the demon’s hissy fit.

“Target these mortals,” I stated, feeling my jaw begin to lock as rage flooded my veins. Flames flickered at the tips of my fingers, threatening to overtake me the second I allowed them to. “They’re utterly defenceless, too stupid to know of the dangers of the multiverse, and yet you torment them like they personally offend you.”

“Shooting Star, you’re getting on my nerves,” he growled back, the sclera of his eye dying that horrific black. “Don’t you condescend me, not when you cannot differentiate between the fake shell Axolotl created for you and what you truly are.” He hovered closer, the yellow of his body slowly beginning to sink into crimson. “You don’t even know what you are, little Star.”

“I know what I am,” I hissed back, refusing to back down when his eye came within inches of my own.

“Do you?” he smirked, humming sarcastically. “Because all I see is a star with an identity crisis, clinging to her mortality. And I find it absolutely _disgusting!_ ”

Before I could so much as think, I slammed my blazing fist into Bill’s side, wanting him to hurt for everything he had done to me, mortal and immortal. At the last second, my muscles fought against me, reigning in the force of the blow so that it only hit the demon as a rough shove. My whole arm quaked, muscles twitching and bones rattling as if I was caught in a vice-like grip.

“Nice try,” Bill chuckled, looking slightly ruffled. He hadn’t been expecting the sudden swing, that much was clear, and it was that knowledge that gave me some kind of satisfaction as I remained frozen. “Your human body hasn’t quite learnt the ‘don’t hurt Bill’ rule yet. At least the star part of you is working.”

“I want to burn you to a crisp,” I snarled, yanking my arm back and freeing it from its frozen state.

“Well, you can’t, Shooting Star,” he chuckled, daring to soothe my fringe away from my forehead. I stepped back in disgust, needing the space between us lest I try for another aborted swing. “You’re a star, you’ll get used to it.”

I flipped him the bird, muttering a grouchy dismissal that was masked by his manic cackling before starting down the road. I didn’t care where I was going, I just needed to get away from Bill, needed to clear my thoughts of what I was and what I was losing. I needed to see the Pines, needed answers to questions that I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to ask yet.

“Aw, was it something I said?” Bill mocked, following me despite the very clear intention I had to get away from him. “I’m sorry, Shooting Star! I thought you were above all of those mortal emotions. Come now, where are you going?”

“I’m going to the shack,” I snapped back, ignoring the sudden gazes I felt on the back of my neck from the darkened windows. It seemed the commotion between Bill and I had begun to draw the citizens out of hiding.

“And _why_ are you going there?” Bill asked petulantly, swerving in front of me to try and halt my progress.

“I need to talk to Stan,” I answered, trying to mimic his annoying nasal tone. He bristled at the imitation, looking scandalised at the idea that he might sound remotely near what I was insinuating.

“Stan? Shooting Star, you said yourself, you don’t consider those meat bags family.”

“Stan’s different,” I defended automatically, my shoulders rising self-consciously.

“No, he isn’t!” Bill protested, scarlet flames licking at the air around him in an angry explosion. “He is a liar, a cheat! He backstabs and steals and destroys everything he comes into contact with! He ruined his brother’s life, he nearly killed both you and Pine Tree and he’s the very reason that I’m here today, torturing this town!”

“Stan loves me.”

At the admission, I found myself coming to a halt, my stomach feeling as if it had fallen out of my body. Realisation erupted across my skin like a wildfire, the warmth of my star pressing so deeply into my chest that I could almost begin to feel my heart beating again. Bill froze beside me, his yellow hue dimming in what I could only guess was horror.

“…He loves me,” I repeated, blinking at the liquid suddenly flooding my eyes. I would have thought I was too dehydrated to cry but here I was, feeling as if the world itself were being pulled out from beneath my feet. I stared up at Bill, my eyes wide and leaking, feeling the gentle terror that was love begin to overtake me. “Grunkle Stan loves me, he always has... Even when I brought you back… or I cost him a lot of money… or when I walked away from him. How did I forget that?”

“And what about Sixer?” Bill argued, coming back down to my level. “He’ll be there too. You know he wants your star, Pine Tree too. They will break you, kid.”

“I _am_ broken!” I snapped, clutching at the star around my throat with every ounce of strength I possessed. “There’s something _wrong_ with me! I miss those stupid mortals! I don’t even want to lose this mortal skin I’m wrapped in!”

 

“Shooting Star, get a grip,” Bill ordered, narrowing his eye at me in warning. “You’re starting to sound like a human. I thought you were better than this.”

“I need to see Stan,” I stressed, wiping at my brow. I turned to start walking again but Bill was immediately in my face, trying to force me back but failing.

“You don’t deserve that star,” Bill hissed, narrowing his eye dangerously before extending his hand. His fingers grazed the gem, sending cold shudders down my spine as I forced myself to remain still. “You don’t understand immortality, nor the power you possess. You can’t even remember what you really are. I should destroy that skin you are hiding inside of, maybe then you will lose those humane thoughts.”

“I may not know a lot of who I am,” I breathed, licking at my dry and cracked lips. “But I do know that me defending myself isn’t interfering with these mortals.” To demonstrate, I pressed a finger to his bow tie, the material going up in blue fire and causing the demon to shoot away in surprise. He swept his hand across the fire and it immediately extinguished, his eye rising to stare at me in genuine shock. “You try to hurt me, I hurt _you._ ”

There was a long pause before he chuckled quietly to himself, the sound coming out dark and foreboding as his eye curled into a wide smirk. “Understood, Shooting Star,” he hummed, rising slowly into the air. “I’ll remember it for next time.”

And, with a burst of blue fire, he was gone.

I sucked in a long breath, relishing the warm Summer air that filled my unnecessary lungs. There was silence, the only sound reaching my ears being the soft whistle of the wind and the continuous dripping of water. Then, as if the sight of Bill retreating pulled them from hiding, Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland suddenly peered through the darkened doorway of the Gravity Falls Police Station. Their eyes met mine, suspicious and timid before recognition washed over them like a flood.

“Mabel…?” Blubs asked quietly, his shades missing and revealing the genuine fear and trepidation that had shaken him to his core. In that moment, he looked like a broken man, his insides infected with the terror that Bill’s mind games instilled, but light was slowly filling his gaze. “Mabel, sweetheart, is that you?”

“Hi, Sheriff Blubs,” I called back quietly, realising that I must have been a sight to behold. Standing in the middle of a deserted street after having been missing for a month, my skin glowing and my clothes looking like something from a fairy tale. “Hi, Deputy Durland.”

“Oh, Mabel… sweetheart, quick, come inside,” Durland insisted, casting a furtive glance down the street before ducking towards me. His hands found mine, soft and gentle with a slight tremor running through them, but his gaze never faltered as he felt the unearthly warmth pouring from my body. “Before he comes back.”

I didn’t protest and allowed him to guide me into the police station, Blubs immediately throwing a tattered blanket around my shoulders. The two brought me over to a plush sofa and sat me down, all the while treating me like I was delicate and precious.

“What were you doing out there, Mabel?” Blubs asked gently, taking both of my hands between his own stout but wide palms. “Bill’s running about. You can’t be outside when he’s here.”

“Bill can’t hurt me,” I hummed back, feeling the part of me that was still very much human grasp Blubs hand back tightly. “He can never touch me again…”

Blubs and Durland exchanged a quick, worried glance before turning back to me, the Deputy coming to sit beside me. “Mabel, dear, where’ve you been?” Blubs continued, looking as if the world itself had broken apart at my absence. “Your uncles said Bill had taken you… and they’ve been looking for a way to get you back.” He suddenly lowered his voice, eyes flickering across the exposed windows as if he were certain Bill was about to break down the walls. “And stop Bill.”

“It’s… hard to explain,” I conceded, feeling immense guilt under the genuine worry that was painted across their expressions. Blubs and Durland, though incompetent cops, were both so very kind to me, acting as secondary uncles when my Grunkles had needed to step out of town for a bit. “Bill didn’t take me… I left…”

“…Left?” Durland asked quietly, voice laced with confusion. For the first time since I had seen them both, I saw the way their eyes suddenly caught onto what I was wearing. “What’s happened to you?”

“I found out I wasn’t human,” I snickered, the words completely devoid of humour as they came pouring out.

“Not human?” Blubs spluttered, his hands tightening their grasp around my own. “Why, how could that be? Stan and Ford and Dipper are you blood relatives, sweetie.”

As I met their eyes, I let out a long sigh, knowing that, once more, no one was going to believe me. “This is pointless,” I whispered, pulling my hands back to clutch my star to my chest. “You won’t believe me anyway.”

“Try us.”

At Durland’s sudden words, I found myself freezing, all nuances of escaping back out to the street shuddering to a halt at the dare in his voice.

“You’re a smart kid, Mabel,” Durland continued, crossing his arms and leaning back in his own chair. “You and that brother of yours have solved all these mysteries that me and Blubs couldn’t. If you believed something, I’d believe you. Just tell us.”

I felt my mouth go dry at his words, a warmth filling my chest that I had not felt in quite a while. It was a warmth that didn’t come from my star or the secondary, fiery veins that overshadowed the blood-filled vessels coursing through my body. The warmth came from my chest where, for the first time in weeks, I could feel the thudding of my heart above the roaring of pure energy in my ears.

“You’ll listen to me?” I asked tentatively, gently tapping my fingers against my knees as I watched the two of the closely. “And you’ll really believe me?”

“We’ll do our best,” Blubs supplied, laying his hand on my knee.

“I’m a star,” I blurted out, unable to contain it at the prospect of someone _actually_ listening to me. “This is me.” I tapped the glowing star around my throat, feeling it hum back in reassurance. “This star _is_ me. I was broken so, so long ago and… I found my missing pieces and found out what I really w _as_ and…” I blinked, realising with a start that both men were still listening intently. “…You’re actually listening to me?”

“We promised we would,” Durland continued, shrugging his shoulders before tossing a worried look at Blubs. “…Did your Uncles not?”

For the first time in what felt like ages, I was speechless, watching the curious, non-judgemental look in their eyes. There was concern there, of course there was, but there was no pity—they were letting me take things at my own pace instead of trying to put words in my mouth.

They wanted to understand what I was thinking.

“Thank you,” I whispered, feeling that awful, choking feeling begin to curl around my throat and take hold. Black, shimmering tears built up in my eyes before slowly cascading down my face, the sight taking both policemen by surprise. Their expressions cleared only a moment later before Blubs tossed me a wry smile.

“Of course you would be a star,” he chuckled, rubbing at his eyes. It was in that moment that I noticed the tears forming in his own eyes, transparent beads dripping down his coffee skin. Durland was no better off. “You were always too good to be human; you know that right, dear?”

“Stop,” I blubbered, feeling my face scrunching up as a genuine sob built up in my chest. “I don’t deserve to be… I was an awful human, I’m an even worse star… I’m meant to leave, go back to the sky, but I just _keep… coming… back!_ ”

“Well, yeah,” Durland suddenly said, his semi-confused tone drawing my attention to him. “You’re the ‘Shooting Star’. ‘Course you’re gonna keep coming home to us.”

“I…” I began before I stopped, suddenly feeling as if something had just clicked into place in my brain. The zodiac wheel suddenly hit me full force, remembering the shooting star symbol that had been engraved into my soul millennia ago before I even knew what the earth looked like.

_Will you go to Earth for me, my child?_

Who’d said that to me?

“I’m the Shooting Star,” I repeated, blinking away the last obsidian tears that still clung to my lashes. “I’m… no. I’m not t _he_ Shooting Star… I _am_ a shooting star…?” I raised my head, feeling as if phantom hands were clutching at my chest with a desperation that was twisted between excitement and a deep-sated fear. “I… I can always come back…”

“Do… we need to have a talk with your Uncles?” Durland asked hesitantly, that forever protective streak of his rearing its head. “Of all people, I’d think those two would be the _most_ inclined to believe you.”

“Talking can be difficult,” I admitted, more than willing to admit that my hesitation to tell them from the beginning about my connection to the star had been a huge catalyst for everything that had followed. Briefly, the siren flashed through my mind, her twisted, blackened ash forever embedded into the forest floor, and I winced. “Especially when you’re scared. But… I know I can’t make myself stay away from this dimension… not when my family is broken again.”

“You are such a star,” Blubs chuckled, lightly flicking my nose with his finger. I smiled back at the familiar gesture. “Burning so bright, my dear.”

Without further prompt, I got to my feet, feeling the warmth of my star flood my secondary veins. “I need to see Stan and Dipper,” I stated, nodding to myself as I made my way back over to the loosely barricaded entrance. “…And Ford. I need to see them, need them to know everything… I need to know everything too.”

“You want us to come with you?” Durland piped up, both men following me to the door. “We might not be much in comparison to a star… but we worry for ya.”

“I’ll be fine,” I chuckled, grinning back at them assuredly before grasping the door knob. “Thank you, again. You both… mean a lot to me.”

“As do you,” Blubs answered, his fingers slowly interlacing with Durland’s. “Be careful.”

“Come back safe,” the Deputy instructed, trying to school his worried expression.

“…I’ll always come back,” I promised, feeling the warmth of their love before stepping back into the outside world.

It was time to face my blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dunno, I just needed Blubs and Durland in this chapter. They seem, despite all of their incompetence as cops, like the people most likely to be in touch with emotions and communication. And really, Mabel needed a break. She needed that confidence boost before potentially going to fight with Ford and Dipper again, desperately needed some adults to just LISTEN and not judge, to praise her for who she is.
> 
> Also they are totally in a relationship, no one can tell me otherwise. 
> 
> The angst will be back soon, I promise! Had some ideas cooking up in the old noggin, I'm thinking some of yall will really appreciate the twist coming up ahead.  
> Also, shitty drawing is shitty because I drew it up months ago and, rather than try and re-do it on my computer, I figured I put off uploading this chapter for too long. We all wanna move on!


	16. Cracked Facades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel needs to see Stan, needs to reassure the parts of her that are still human.
> 
> Stan's not home.
> 
> Ford is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S BEEN SOOOOOOO LOOOOOONG
> 
> Sorry, I had exams and I am DEAD TM.  
> Hoo boy... Anyway, sorry for the wait, please have this slightly longer than normal chapter!

The shack stood just out of the shade of the pine trees, the lowering sun casting a wash of gold and scarlet to cascade down the ageing walls. The forest was deathly silent, not even a cricket breaking the oppressive quiet that clung to the shack like smoke. My footfalls failed to disturb even a grain of sand, a constant reminder that I wasn’t of this world anymore and that I shouldn’t have been trying to interfere in mortal affairs.

Somewhere in the distance, Bill’s manic laughter echoed throughout the valley, disturbing the eerie peace that had begun to settle around my shoulders. If I closed my eyes, blinded myself to the unearthly light pouring from my skin, I could almost believe I was still the Mabel that the Pines family had been searching for so desperately. The same child who had laughed at the pain inflicted on her and had stood at the edge of Weirdmageddon with a daring grin etched into her lips.

_Have I really changed so much, though?_

I shook my head, dismissing the thought almost immediately. I forced myself to move forward, the sight of the shack approaching sending a nervous shudder down my spine. It had been easy, lying in the Nightmare Realm and realising that I was incomplete while my human parts missed her family. Now though, standing on the precipice of a den containing those who threatened the sanctity of my very being?

Now, I was feeling the edge of fear.

As I placed my foot on the first step, the wood shrieking in protest beneath my stocking-clad foot, I tried to convince myself to turn away and leave. The next plank groaned louder, the sound carrying so much further that I found my jaw clenching in agony. There was movement from inside of the shack now, a wary set of feet carrying their owner to the peep hole on the other side of the door. I held my breath in preparation of the moment, my feet freezing on the second step as, with a slow swing, the door finally opened. There on the doorstep stood Stanford Pines.

And the hope began to drain from my body.

“…Where’s Stanley?” I asked, my mouth feeling unquenchably dry as I stared into his bemused face. He seemed to be just as surprised as I was, the laser rifle he had been holding falling to his side as his grey eyes widened.

“…Mabel?”

“ _Where’s Stanley?_ ” I repeated, feeling almost hysterical at the level of panic flooding through my veins. There was a quake in my fingers, each appendage twitching and causing sparks to fly from them.

Pain filled his eyes at my question, his body sagging as if he had suddenly aged another sixty years. The gun fell to the floor, bouncing harmlessly off of it to lay discarded on the porch. “’Where’s Stanley’?” he choked out, one of his hands coming to lay over his mouth. A second later, a horrible sob clawed its way from his throat, the sound echoing in the hollowing silence that threatened to swallow the shack whole. “That’s… You only… want to see him?” he asked breathlessly, as if his lungs were refusing to listen to him. I could recognise the signs; he was on the verge of a breakdown—the sight of me being the final nail in his coffin.

I didn’t know what I had interrupted—didn’t know whether Stanley or Dipper were even home, but I did know that Ford was on his own precipice, almost begging with his eyes for me to catch him. His sagging shoulders began to shake and I saw the glimmer of tears cresting on his lashes. The part of me that still clung to its humanity twisted in grief and, before the rest of me could catch up, I was grasping at his sleeve, holding the older man steady.

“…Mabel?” Ford whispered softly, blinking owlishly down at me as another wave of tears descended.

I pressed my lips together as tightly as I could, my celestial parts fighting for dominance over my weak mortal sympathy. “Stop,” I mumbled, my hand trembling. Whether the order was meant for me or Ford, I wasn’t sure, but I knew I was beginning to fall into a dangerous pit that I would never be able to escape from. “ _Stop_ it. _You_ hurt _me_ , this… it isn’t fair. You know I can’t… could never… _Just stop crying!_ ”

Ford sniffed loudly, raising his free hand to try and stop the flow of tears that had streaked down his face. The more he scrubbed, the worse it got, until his hand was visibly shaking and his pale face had begun to flush from the friction.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, his voice thick with emotion as it escaped through the gaps of his fingers. “I’m sorry, Mabel, sweetheart, I’m so, so sorry—”

While a part of me was crowing over the apology, the rest just ached with a fierceness that surely could not just come from my human body. With a soft shake of my head to stop his words, I tugged on his sleeve, pulling him back into the shack.

“Let’s just get you cleaned up,” I muttered, forcing myself to release him once we got to the kitchen. He fell heavily into one of the kitchen chairs, the breath rushing out from between his chapped lips in a loud gush. If I didn’t know he was so upset, I would have thought his lungs had failed. Surely humans didn’t need to breath so quickly—

A panic attack.

“Hey, no, calm down,” I snapped sluggishly, feeling as if I had been submerged in thick, gluggy water.

It had been so long since I had spent more than ten minutes around a mortal and everything had seeped through the cracks of my evolving mind. Ford’s face was beginning to turn purple, his eyes panicked and bulging from his head as he stared unseeingly at the world around us. I fumbled, feeling one of his hands grip my forearm in a vice-like grip that tightened to the point that my bones began to creak. Distant memories of being human and vulnerable flashed through my mind, of a time when my own lungs would fail me and Stan would hold me and press my hands to his chest. I remembered his heart soothing the terror from my veins with each gentle thud against his ribs.

“Hey!” I snapped, an edge of discomfort in my voice as my hand snaked out to grab at his own. He briefly fought the tug, his mind likely somewhere in the multiverse in a dark recess where no-one would be able to save him. I hissed softly under my breath and yanked him forward none-too-gently, pressing his palm over my sternum where my own heart continued to beat to its own, albeit slower, rhythm. “Hey, Stanford, listen to— Stop fighting me— _Stanford!_ ”

Wrecked sobs came falling from his mouth, so many unsaid words wanting to come out at once that his lungs seemed to be plugged. The grip he had around my other arm increased in pressure until, with a sound that had no right coming from flesh, the skin cracked, sending black gashes streaming towards my shoulder and hand. I gritted my teeth, acknowledging in the back of my head that I was treading on tenuous ground now. My human form was so much more delicate than my star parts and part of me knew that it likely wouldn’t last at the rate I was going.

“Stanford, stop, listen—” I began to say before, with another shuddering sob, his grasp caused larger cracks to form in my skin. “ _Grunkle Ford, stop! You’re hurting me!_ ”

The second the words spilled from my lips, I felt the immediate shift between us. Ford’s red, swollen eyes raised, meeting mine through a glaze of tears that refused to cease with such a heartbreaking look that something else inside of me broke. Slowly, Ford’s breathing slowed, his palm shaking against my sternum as the other achingly released my forearm.

“Mabel?” Ford whispered, his voice still stuttering with silent hiccups. His face crumpled and his whole body went slack, falling forward. If not for my heightened strength, the weight of my Grunkle would have knocked me straight off of my feet but, as I was, I was able to help lean his lax form to slump over the kitchen table.

“Jeez,” I sighed quietly, placing my hand between his shoulder blades. I felt his stuttered breaths shake his frame and I closed my eyes, trying to let the panic slowly seep from my muscles. “Once more…” I mumbled, staring down at the black cracks cutting through my arm like a broken porcelain doll. “…You’ve hurt me, Stanford…”

Slowly, I straightened and made my way to the sink, wetting one of the clean tea towels in the cupboard. I then used it to carefully wipe away the sweat and tears that had collect along Ford’s face in the chaos, some more of my tension easing at the familiar peace that had settled over my Grunkle’s features in sleep.

“I suppose in both cases… you never intended to hurt me,” I hummed thoughtfully, placing the cool towel on the back of his neck. A quick trip to the linen closet followed and, soon enough, I had Ford’s head resting on a cushion and a maroon blanket swaddled around his shoulders. “Maybe…” I whispered, slowly running a hand through his fluffy, knotted hair. “…Maybe we were both a bit too harsh? Maybe… you would have believed me if I had told you earlier. Maybe… if I’d just _said_ how you and Dipper had made me feel, when I was still human…”

I huffed another sigh, laughing quietly to myself at how pathetic I was. I truly was at war with myself in that moment. The star part of me was furious, screaming in fury at how we were waiting on a mere _mortal,_ while the dwindling part of myself that was human was humming in contentment, finally back home after so long.

“I guess it doesn’t matter now though.”

 

 

It took about an hour before Ford showed any sign of stirring. Over that time, it slowly began to sink in just how worn out the man was. He’d had dark circles under his eyes that looked like permanent violet blooms, his skin a latticework of pale skin and ragged scars, old and new.

A quick peruse of the house showed that no-one else was home, which, in all fairness, had become evident when no one else had rushed to the kitchen at the ruckus we’d caused. Stan and Dipper must have been out in the woods somewhere as neither of the cars were missing but Dipper’s journal and backpack were gone. The basement was still in chaos since the last time I had visited, only now there were more books on quantum physics and wormhole theory, more notes scattered about and plastered to the walls. At the centre of it, more noticeable than before, was a desperation to break into the nightmare realm, not to rid themselves of Bill, but to somehow get me to come home.

My left arm throbbed with every minute movement, the broken parts of my skin soon giving out to reveal the dark abyss that was my true body. Though it was only a miniscule amount of black showing, the pure size of the cracks extending off of it towards my shoulder and wrist made my stomach tighten in nausea.

This body wasn’t going to last much longer.

My brooding was quickly cut short when the sound of Ford stirring prompted me to return to the kitchen table. He was groaning lowly into his throat, rubbing at his head as he straightened and opened his bloodshot eyes.

“Good evening,” I called curtly, slipping into the chair opposite him. Stanford almost seemed to jump out of his skin, his head snapping around to stare at me in complete bewilderment. “What?” I asked, brows sinking into a frown. “You had a panic attack and passed out. I wasn’t going to leave you alone.”

Red-rimmed eyes blinked at me in confusion, the movement sluggish and disoriented. He ran a hand through his grey hair before clearing his throat, almost as if he wasn’t quite sure whether he could trust his own voice or not.

“I thought…” he began, rubbing absentmindedly at his throat before averting his gaze. “I thought you were just a dream.”

I snickered quietly to myself, unable to help the smirk that tugged at the corners of my mouth. “I _am_ pretty radiant,” I snorted, remembering how funny I thought the term was when I was still in pieces. The humour was quick to fall, however, when the severity of the situation I had gotten myself into sunk in. “But, obviously, I haven’t come today to joke around.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, sweetheart,” Stanford quickly piped up, raising a hand to wipe the sleep from his eyes. He was becoming more and more alert as the seconds ticked by, the full realisation that I was here, in the kitchen, beginning to take root in his mind. “But… _why_ did you come back?”

“You don’t want me back?”

“You _know_ that’s not what I meant,” Ford huffed, unable to help the slight curl to his lips at our reminiscent banter. “Why _now?_ We haven’t seen you in nearly a month and… we were starting to think you were gone for good this time.”

I drummed my fingers against the wood of the table slowly, considering my next words carefully. “My remaining humanity craves the family we left behind,” I admitted finally, raising my gaze to meet his straight on. His eyes widened at the admission, his mouth opening but I cut him off before he could begin. “Before we continue this conversation, however, there are a few things we need to get clear first.”

His mouth closed with a quiet click, his jaw clenching as he thought it over before nodding. He was beginning to come down from the adrenaline of our meeting, his skin slowly warming as his rationality returned.

“I’m listening,” Ford stated, not unkindly. He seemed just as out of his element as I was, his tone taking on a more scientific quality to indicate that he was ready to hear out anything I had to say.

“I’m still Mabel,” I said firmly, laying my hand on the table as I stared the older man down. “I’m different, I’m changing and I’m discovering who I really am—but I’m still Mabel Pines. Everything that I am is still in here.” I tapped my temple quickly, refusing to break eye contact when Ford’s expression began to soften at my declaration. “I’ve just reclaimed the parts of me that were lost when I was born as a human.”

“Okay… I understand.”

“Next… I haven’t forgiven you yet,” I stated, hating the way my stomach immediately began to twist at my own words. For a moment, Ford allowed his face to fall but quickly schooled it, nodding again to let me know to continue. “But… I also realise that my… lack of honesty… was a major contributor to our falling out.”

“’Lack of honesty’?” Ford repeated, brows lowering into a frown of confusion. “I don’t understand, Mabel.”

“I should have told you the second the star shards started talking to me,” I continued, pushing down my star’s pride that immediately squawked in indignation. “I shouldn’t have let you and Dipper cut me out, I should have told you how I was feeling, but I was scared. I didn’t want you to have a worse opinion of me than you already did and begging for your attention felt like I would only drive you both further away.”

“Mabel…” Ford murmured, reaching across the table to offer his hand. I didn’t take it, instead choosing to face him down and focus on what his eyes would be trying to tell me. The hand remained outstretched, just in case I changed my mind. “Excuse the old man analogy but you were the apple of my eye—still are, of course—I don’t have anything but praise for you.” His face suddenly shifted and his eyes became downcast, realisation beginning to weigh his tall frame down. “I didn’t help with your insecurity though, did I? My brain always was too fast for my emotions to catch up to. I should have realised I’d begun to leave you behind.”

I sucked in a long, unnecessary breath through my nose, pushing down the arrogance of my immortality and the vulnerability of my mortality. I needed a clear head for this conversation—Ford couldn’t be forgiven so easily, lest he hurt us again, and we certainly couldn’t keep him out of our lives.

“The reason I didn’t ever tell you…” I began, fighting against the feeling of my throat trying to close in on itself. I cleared my throat, my hand shakily coming to caress the star that hung around my neck to comfort myself. “I didn’t know how you would react, and the thought terrified me. I did… something bad.” I lowered my glaze for a split second at the admission, guilt beginning to make my own shoulders slump. “…A couple bad things, actually…”

“Like what?” Ford asked patiently, fully into his scientist mode. He was trying to not let his emotions get the better of him which I appreciated— I wasn’t ready to be coddled and told I could do no wrong.

“The siren,” I stated, watching as momentary confusion was replaced with quick recognition. “Before all of this, just after I found my flowers and kept a shard unknowingly in my journal. The trance I was in was interrupted by my shard calling out to me in warning. I got hurt, she chased me… and I killed her.”

Silence shrouded the two of us almost immediately, the air becoming electric as the meaning behind my words slowly sunk in. Ford’s eyes, which had been somewhat more relaxed, sharpened at the admission, a jolt practically racing through his shoulders as he stared at me in complete shock.

“You…?” he repeated, sounding lost and confused, as if I had suddenly told him that everything he knew about physics was a lie.

“It… was a regrettable accident,” I admitted, hunching my shoulders under the weight of his incredulous gaze. “I didn’t even know what I was at the time… though I know nothing can excuse taking the life of another being but…” I paused at that, realising with a sinking feeling that, really, how could I explain away what I had done? The burnt silhouette of the Siren would forever haunt me, even if she had been trying to kill me first. “After everything… I’m still an awful person.”

“ _No!_ ” Ford suddenly snapped, a dark expression suddenly descending across his face. I started back in surprise, unsure where this sudden fire had come from.

“…Stanford?”

“You’re _not…_ Oh, Mabel, is this why you didn’t tell us?” he asked, anger melting away to reveal only heartbreak at my admission. A worm of guilt began to twist in my stomach and I sank lower into my chair, hating that I had brought such an awful expression to his face. This time, he didn’t wait for me to take his hand—he reached across and grabbed it himself.

“Stanford—”

“You are _not_ an awful person, sweetheart!” he emphasised, his eyes filling with a desperation for me to understand what he was saying. “I don’t know why you would ever…” He paused at that, his brows furrowing in thought before he paled, eyes gently caressing my features. “…You were off your medication at the time… And I wasn’t there to reassure you.”

I hummed quietly in affirmation, unable to deny the truth when it was so clearly spoken. “You remembered,” I acknowledged, my hand feeling like an immovable lead weight in his palm. “As a mortal, I really was a sickly child, wasn’t I?”

“You just needed a bit of extra help,” Ford was quick to reassure, squeezing my knuckles tightly. “If… if becoming what you are now was enough to make you healthy then… I’m so thankful.” His eyes slowly came to rest on the cracked skin of my arm, the iridescent black that formed the visible part of my celestial body dully flashing under the low light.

With a sigh, I slowly pulled my hand out of his grasp, raising it to run idly across the flaking edges of my skin. “My human body won’t survive at this rate,” I admitted, raising a hand to halt any of Ford’s panicked responses. I stared straight into his eyes, trying to reassure his fears with a gentle, wry smile. “At this point, I think it’s just a… shell? A husk? I’m not mortal anymore, that’s for sure. My sisters said I should have let this form die weeks ago but… I’m not ready to leave my humanity behind.”

“Sisters?”

“Ah, I forgot,” I chuckled quietly, drawing tiny circles with my fingers into the wood of the table. “I met some of the other stars in the sky. They’re… intense but… they remember me.” My eyes raised to meet his, Ford’s breath noticeably catching in his throat at my declaration. There was awe there, so heavily laden in his eyes that I began to realise how out there this all really was. “They remember me… from _before_ my star fell to Earth.”

“Do they…” he began, having to pause to clear his throat before drumming his fingers nervously against the table. “Do they know… why you fell? This is all just so…”

“Bizarre?” I chuckled, fingering the flaking skin on my arm. I didn’t flinch when another piece came loose, the broken shards shimmering before disappearing from existence before our very eyes. Ford looked ready to burst at the sight. “Bill Cipher,” I sighed, leaning back in my chair and trying to ignore the visible flinch that went through his body. “From what I was told from my missing shards before I was completed, a higher power asked us… _me_ to fall.” My eyes met Ford’s from across the table before falling once more to examine the intricate grain of the wood. “The Zodiac needed a human star to be completed. Apparently, I was the one that was chosen to fall.”

“…This is all so much…” Ford finally mumbled after a long pause, running a six-fingered hand through his hair.

I hummed in affirmation but added nothing else, knowing that, now that I had come clean, it was up to Ford to determine how to react to it all. His reaction would determine how our relationship progressed, whether it would be mended or fully severed, and I needed to be certain that Ford was finally beginning to see things from my perspective.

I didn’t want to end up like the broken star in the sky.

_…But you love them?_

_…So did I…_

“But…” he finally said, voice hushed as his face softened. “You always were too good to be human… Of course, my great niece would be a literal star.”

And then he laughed.

Honest to God _laughed._

Tears burnt my cheeks as they quickly flooded down my face, unable to keep the desperation of my humanity from cracking at his words. I sensed the confusion and concern radiating from Ford at my sudden reaction and it just made me break further, a harsh sob ripping from my throat. He was quick to his feet, his arms opening without any conscious thought as he had always been prone to do when I was lost to tears. And, while the star part of me cursed at our weakness, I threw myself into his arms without abandon, immediately feeling the intensity and warmth of his embrace as he pulled me off of my feet. As I cried, body shaking with the sobs and threatening to come apart at the seams, Ford held me tight, keeping my broken pieces together when all they wanted to do was shatter.

For the first time in weeks, I felt the screaming in my head go silent.

And I basked in the silence.


	17. From Dust to Dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel and Ford may have reconnected, but there are more Pines in this family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I got so bored today during my uni break I came back to write the next chapter of this story. It didn't go ANYWHERE I thought it originally would but I kinda like the direction it's taken.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it too!

_Shooting Star~! Where are you~?_

As Bill’s voice echoed in my head, I felt whatever peace I had gained after reconciling with Stanford disappear in a nanosecond. A visible tremble raced through my form, adding to the growing cracks along my damaged elbow until nearly the whole joint was bare.

“Mabel?” Ford called from his spot by the kitchen counter, two mugs, waiting to be filled, in his hands. “You okay?”

“Bill’s calling me,” I grumbled, rubbing at my now aching skull. At the name, the mugs slipped out of his hands, their descent stopped by a quick wave of my hand that sent fire spitting at them. “Sorry,” I mumbled bashfully, fingers twitching to guide the flames back up to the bench. Other than a couple scorch marks, the glasses were fine, and a quick flick of my wrist had the fire extinguishing to nothing. “Probably should warn you before mentioning his name.”

“No, that’s… that’s my bad,” he mumbled back tiredly, rubbing at the bags beneath his eyes. Despite his tiredness, I could see the awe that lingered in his gaze after having seen my flames dance as if they were alive. “I’ve encountered him plenty in the last month so… I s _hould_ be used to this.” His eyes suddenly found mine from across the table, a bittersweet sense of pride washing over his features as he examined me. “To think, I spent thirty years researching inter-dimensional travel and yet… you can do it without even trying.”

“To be fair, I have an unfair advantage,” I defended, offering him a small smile to let him know that the statement hadn’t hurt me.

He laughed back, the moment broken and forgotten in mere seconds. “I suppose,” he chuckled, turning to finish our cups of coffee. “If Stan were here, he’d chastise me for even giving you caffeine.”

“Where is he, anyway?” I asked, accepting the mug he handed me. I took a quick sip and grinned, knowing that Ford always made my coffee preference perfectly each time.

“He took Dipper out to go goblin hunting,” he explained, re-taking his seat opposite me. “The boy was getting too restless, needed some sunlight and fresh air.”

“Sounds like that nerd,” I giggled, pressing my free hand into the black and violet abyss that was my elbow. It was soft to the touch, a warmth pulsating through it that, if it wasn’t already a part of me, would definitely confirm it was alive.

“Do you know why that… _thing…_ is trying to call you?”

“He probably wants to show something off to me,” I sighed, taking a deep sip from my drink. It was strange—I had spent so long not wanting food or water and, yet, as soon as Ford made me a drink, I wanted nothing more than devour all of its contents. “We got into an argument when we arrived this time around. He threatened me, I set his bow on fire…”

Ford snorted, hand slamming down on the table as he wheezed with uncharacteristic laughter. “You s _et his bow on fire?!_ ”

“There are certain rules about what I can and can’t do,” I explained, trying and failing to hide the shit-stirring grin that sprung onto my face. “I can’t meddle with mortal affairs so long as my star is whole and is in my possession. But, if you _threaten_ me, well, I can threaten right back. You should have seen his face!”

“You are extraordinary, Mabel,” my Grunkle sighed, smiling softly at me in a way I hadn’t seen from him in a long time. It made my chest feel exceedingly warm and pleasant, my guard lowering at finally feeling safe in Ford’s presence.

Until the front door slammed open.

“Oi, Sixer!”

“Grunkle Ford—”

Two sets of footsteps rushed to the kitchen doorway, both freezing at the sight of Ford and I drinking coffee at the table. Dipper’s mouth immediately fell open while Stan went so pale that I was certain he was about to faint.

“ _Mabel?!_ ” Dipper yelped, stumbling forward and only managing to trip over his own feet once. He stood before me, hands shaking terribly as he stared down at me with eyes that were far-too-wide for his face. “You’re… here…?”

“Yeah… hey,” I said awkwardly, raising my hand to offer him a clunky wave.

“You… you came back?”

“Ford and I had some stuff to talk through,” I explained, scratching at the back of my neck as I tossed the older man a fond look. “It took a while but… I think we’re good. Right?”

“Right,” Ford immediately intoned, reaching across the table to lay a hand on my own.

“Oh, thank _God,_ ” Stan immediately moaned, his whole body hunching as if he had aged ten years in the span of a couple seconds. The relief across his form was so visceral that I felt my own throat begin to become choked up with hushed tears. Without even thinking, I raised my arms and welcomed the embrace that my other Grunkle threw us into at his first opportunity. “I _missed_ you, pumpkin. Please, don’t leave us like that again. _Please!_ ”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the lapels of his suit. He smelled like the woods and of Pitt Cola, making my eyes sting more at the familiarity.

I had missed this.

“Mabel, you…” Dipper began to say when Stan finally released me, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip as if he, himself, was afraid of what he needed to say.

“…Dipper,” I whispered, pushing my mug away before climbing to my feet.

The material at my hips swirled at the movement, like the water lapping gently at the beach’s shore. My brother—my twin—didn’t make a move to approach me, his eyes taking in every detail of my changing body with an expression so closed to me that I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking.

_When did I stop being able to read his expression?_

“…Dipper…?” I whispered again, suppressing the urge to shudder as his eyes locked onto the growing abyss that was my degrading elbow.

“…Mabel,” he murmured, his eyes sinking closed as he reached for my intact arm. His skin was cool in comparison to my own and I could see the grimace that tugged at his lips at the sensation. “It’s you… right?” His eyes finally met my own, melancholic brown eyes staring deep into my now pink irises.

“Yeah,” I whispered, smiling softly back at my twin as I slipped my hand into his. “I’m home, bro.”

He tugged me sharply to his chest, his arms immediately locking around me in a tight embrace. His face pressed into the crook of my neck and my heart near-burst, tears flooding down my face at finally being able to embrace my brother again.

“I’m sorry,” I choked, my throat clenching around the words. “I didn’t realise how much I’d missed you until I saw you.”

The star part of myself was near howling in indignation at this point, utterly repulsed by the idea of relying on mere mortals to provide for my emotional needs. But, despite it, I knew how desperately I had needed to return to Earth, even if it was just to see my family one last time. At having my brother’s arms locked around me, I felt like I could breathe for the first time in weeks, my human half finally falling silent.

“I’m sorry too,” Dipper whispered. I sniffled, hugging him even tighter as he raised his hand to pat my back like we usually did during awkward sibling hugs—

_Snap!_

My breath caught in my throat, my whole body feeling as if it had been doused in ice water as all of the strength left me. The floor came rushing up to meet me and I heard my Grunkles yell out in alarm, the two of them rushing to my side as I stared up at my brother in pure horror. My fingers scrabbled at my neck, knowing that my star— _my body_ —was gone and yet being unable to accept it. It felt like I was missing a limb, my nerves dead and unfeeling as they tried to reach the part of me that was now gone.

“Dipper, what are you _doing?!_ ” Ford yelled, wrapping his arm around me in a panicked frenzy.

“What I have to,” Dipper hissed back, staring down at me coolly as he raised his hand. My star, my whole world, dangled loosely from between his fingers, the thin, broken fabric of the necklace keeping his skin free from the unbearably hot surface.

“No…” I whispered, my voice growing more and more pitched as alarm curled through my slowly cooling veins. “No, no, no, _no, no, NO!_ ”

“Shut up!” Dipper roared, his face twisting into such a horrific expression that I no longer recognised him. My human half withered at his anger, the strength and pride of my star feeling as if they no longer belonged to me now that someone had stolen it from me so easily. At his order, the invisible muzzle that I had come to fear snapped immediately around my jaw, my teeth clenching so tightly that I could almost hear them creaking in my skull.

“Dipper, stop this!” Stan yelled, his face growing dark with pure rage as he met his nephew’s eyes. “Give her back her star!”

“You’ve all _fallen_ for this thing’s lies!” Dipper shouted, his fingers tightening around my star’s straps as he shook it. “This thing has possessed my sister, released Bill, hurt e _veryone_ and you want me to _give this back?!_ ” A cruel grin spread across my brother’s face and the last of the hope died in my chest, knowing finally why I couldn’t read Dipper’s eyes anymore.

He had closed himself off to me.

Permanently.

“I’m going to fix this,” Dipper declared, holding the star high above me as he glowered. “Bill says this can control the monster, so I’m going to make sure it destroys Bill.” His eyes passed over me, unseeing to the Mabel he had known once and making pure misery bubble up from the pits of my stomach. “And then I’m going to destroy this _thing._ ”

“Dipper, you don’t understand,” Ford interjected in a panic, getting to his feet. He allowed me to fall straight into Stan’s waiting arms, his whole being seeming to curl around me protectively. “The star—I know it sounds crazy—that’s Mabel, Dipper!”

“I thought you, of all people, wouldn’t fall for these tricks,” Dipper hissed, directing his menacing glare at our Grunkle. Ford balked at the comment but didn’t back down, his back straightening as he held his hand out for my star.

“Give it back.”

“Star,” Dipper snapped, his eyes staring past Ford to glower down at me. “Summon Bill.”

Electricity surged up my spine, forcing my body to go taut against my will. A scream of terror bubbled up in my throat only to become caught, ensnared by the clamp around my jaw and forcing me to swallow my cries of fear. Suddenly, the muzzle holding my mouth shut loosened but the words that passed my lips were not my own.

“ _Bill!_ ” I called, tongue feeling thick and heavy in my mouth as I was forced to my feet. The voice was mine but it was if I was being controlled by invisible strings; a marionette doll that was soon to be discarded. “ _Bill, I summon you!_ ”

“Dipper, s _top it!_ ” Stan snapped, looking like he was getting ready to tackle the boy.

The broken star that I had met up in the sky crossed my mind as blue flames licked at the floor of the shack. She’d been so defeated, had felt the sting of those that she had loved taking and breaking her until she was no longer useful.

_You love them?_

_So did I…_

“Well, well, Shooting Star, you never call me!” Bill’s voice sang as the demon appeared in the flames. “You ready to apologise for—” he began until he realised where we were, his eye narrowing at the gathered Pines. “What’s going on, Shooting Star? Not backing out of our deal, are we?”

The second I tried to open my mouth—to beg for help, to warn him, I wasn’t sure—the muzzle immediately clamped shut again and I could only whine pathetically in distress. His eye widened at my action, something akin to worry shooting across his face so quickly that I was almost certain that it was just a trick of the light.

“ _You,_ ” he hissed, his pupil narrowing as it focused on Dipper.

The boy stood with his head held high, eyes full of haughty defiance, as if he were challenging Bill to try and condemn his actions.

“Do you have any idea what you are doing?” Bill asked, his normal teasing tone fraying at the edges as red tinged his corners. “Why have you silenced her?”

“Its words are meaningless,” Dipper intoned blankly, holding the star up once more. “Star, if you are so powerful, _destroy_ Bill Cipher.”

“You _insolent brat!_ ” Bill shrieked, sclera turning as black as the abyss as he surged through the air towards Dipper.

He barely got within a metre of him before the strain of the order finally forced my limbs to move. I raised a single hand, black seeping steadily from my eyes as blue-tinged flames shot from my palm. It was all-consuming in its wrath, hungry for blood and unwilling to stop until it got what was ordered of it.

Bill’s eye found mine the second before the blast made contact, something akin to a sombre farewell passing between us. There was acceptance in his gaze, a companionable respect as if he were glad that, out of all possible avenues, he was meeting his end by the hand of a star. As much as he had destroyed my youth and my innocence, there had been a part of me that had been grateful—because of him, I had finally become whole and free.

_…Goodbye, Shooting Star._

_Goodbye, Bill…_

_Boom!_

The Shack didn’t stand a chance.

With a mighty sound, the wall of the kitchen and the connecting gift shop was gone, blown to pieces by the blast. The force of the explosion sent glass raining down from every single window, the soft crinkling of the pieces being the only thing to overcome the ringing in my mortal ears. The three humans had not escaped unscathed. While Stan had been thrown against the kitchen counter, Dipper and Ford had been thrown to the floor, the only thing to catch them being the opposing wall. Stan had a large cut along his temple and didn’t seem to be conscious while Ford looked as if he were fighting to focus on what was happening.

The inky black of the sky penetrated the Shack, making my star shine so beautifully from where it had fallen against the tiled floor. The necklace was still clutched tightly in Dipper’s white-knuckled fist and so his hold remained, his orders forcing the heat of my flames to crackle inside of my veins. Slowly, he raised his blood-spattered face, his nose looking as if it had broken when he had hit the floor.

I couldn’t help but feel as if he deserved it.

“I didn’t—” he began, breaking off to cough as dust swirled in the air around us. “I didn’t order you to _destroy_ the _Shack,_ Star!”

His bleary but still venom-filled gaze found mine before it shot past me, focusing on what I had to assume was what was left of Bill. My eyes slowly slunk across the floor, catching on the shards of toxic yellow that now lay like broken glass across the floor. I waited for them to rearrange themselves, for Bill to put himself back together, but it seemed my body wasn’t ready to just allow that. My hand raised, blue sparks quickly engulfing my palm before consuming the remains of Bill Cipher.

I could taste Bill’s life force on the back of my tongue as my flames licked at him, my stomach revolting against the sensation. I didn’t want this, didn’t want my body to be taking the life of someone—no matter how bad he was—like some twisted puppet. My tears continued to fall silently, hating that my skin was no longer my own despite having just built a new identity for myself. My tongue, my mouth, not even the voice I had used to speak with my shards were my own anymore, locked in a transparent cage like some kind of hideous hostage.

Finally, the last tendril of Bill had been consumed and my arm went slack, my whole body wishing to give out on me but being unable to. Instead, my eyes sought out my twin, my other half, the person who had now caused me greater pain than everyone in my life combined.  

_‘Are you happy?’_ I wanted to demand. ‘ _Is this what you wanted? When will you stop hurting me?’_

Slowly, under my accusatory glare, he pushed himself into a sitting position, dragging my star across the tiles to rest in the space between us. I sucked in a sharp breath, thinking for a naïve minute that he was about to relinquish my star back to me.

Until his other hand reached for a brick.

My mind erupted into a thousand shrieking voices, memories shooting across my mind of our original descent to earth. The shattering, like our soul had been split into innumerable pieces that had no hope of ever being put back together. The wait, the millions upon millions of years waiting for our final piece to be born, for the zodiac to be completed so that, we too, could be complete.

Dipper slowly lifted the brick above his head, eyes never leaving my own.

The wonderful two months of being whole once more passed through my head, the peace of my shards finally being one, soothing the anxious spirit that lived inside of me. The feeling of holding my star for the first time— the love that had flowed through my veins. I’d lost parts of my humanity, sure, but I had never felt as happy as I was in that very moment.

I’d never even gotten to stay with my lost sisters in the sky.

With a silent but visceral shriek, Dipper brought the brick down upon my star.

And I fell to a million pieces.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dipper got DARK in this one, ngl.
> 
> I was going to give Bill a better death but... this felt right. Besides, I wanted to focus more on Mabel's shattering.
> 
> Anyway... I hope you all liked it!


End file.
